http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/charter-petition.html Revoking Philip Morris's Charter--Petition Sign the online petition to revoke the charter! SINCE the first American corporations were chartered in 1776, their lawyers and lobbyists have been sneaking around in our courtrooms and state capitols, reconfiguring the law to better suit their needs. Yet few people have stepped back to look at the results and start asking questions: "You mean corporations and their activities were once subject to public consent? How on earth did corporations get the rights of people? How did we get stuck playing by their rules--trying to regulate to minimize corporate damage? So why aren't we asserting our right to shut offending corporations down?" Charters were once issued sparingly to meet specific public needs and expired after 10 to 30 years. Corporations were restricted in size and allowable wealth. Directors and managers were held liable for corporate harms. And legislatures reserved the right to amend and revoke corporate charters at will. Defining the corporation, Article 12 of California's 1879 Constitution filled several pages in 24 sections. All but four have been repealed, the final regression occurring in 1972. But there's hope. All states have the largely dormant power to revoke corporate charters--the very papers that permit corporate existence. In early May, New York Attorney General Dennis Vacco filed court papers seeking to dissolve the corporate existence of The Council for Tobacco Research and The Tobacco Institute on the grounds that they are tobacco-funded fronts that serve "as propaganda arms of the industry" despite claiming from their inception to be independent, scientific institutions. "It's about time the Attorney General lived up to his obligations," says New York's Richard Grossman of the Program on Corporations, Law, and Democracy, the group that started the charter revocation movement. "Over the last five years, many people I've talked to have rolled their eyes at the thought of charter revocation. Many think such an action is a pipedream. Fortunately, Vacco's actions show they're wrong." The movement was started by longtime activists who realized fighting for corporate regulation didn't work. Corporations simply break the law, include fines and court fees as a cost of doing business, and pass it off onto their customers. While most corporations break the law on a regular basis, Grossman realized they are not chartered to do so. This realization spurred a wealth of legal research and created momentum within the burgeoning movement. Law in New York, the home state of Philip Morris, Inc., holds that a for-profit corporation can be dissolved if it "(a) procured its formation through fraudulent misrepresentation or concealment of material fact, (b) exceeded the authority conferred upon it by law, (c) violated any provision of law whereby it has forfeited its charter, (d) conducted its business in a persistently fraudulent or illegal manner, or (e) abused its powers in a manner contrary to the public policy of the state." If you convince the Attorney General to file an order to "show cause," accompanied by a petition stating the grounds, the case will go to court. Easier said than done, of course. Incredible feats of organizing and education will be necessary to shift the law back in the public's favor and undo a pattern over a century old. Where to begin? Let's start with a massive campaign to revoke the charter of Public Enemy Number One--Philip Morris, Inc.--for consistently violating the above "(d)" and "(e)" while marketing to minors and covering up evidence of health risk, among other reasons. There's hope in the dusty halls of law history and even more in the organizing underway. Birmingham Circuit Judge William Wynn recently discovered that Alabama is one of the few states allowing an individual to initiate charter revocation. So as a private citizen, he's filed to forbid the five major tobacco corporations from operating there. The case is now in court. But don't forget, "the movement is much deeper than charter revocation," says Paul Cienfuegos of Democracy Unlimited in Arcata, California. "It's about nothing less than building a locally-led national movement which for the first time in US history demands and creates mechanisms of authentic democratic control over all institutions we citizens are sovereign over, be they corporate or government." Will Philip Morris, Inc., fall to such a populist effort? It's up to you. Sign the online petition to revoke the charter! http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/charter-petition.html -- Jason Mogus Director of Client Services Communicopia Internet http://www.communicopia.bc.ca 604/844.7672 What!?! Another Megamerger? Envolve & Communicopia Get Hitched! Check out Merger Site: http://www.communicopia.bc.ca
