Mike Hohmann wrote, in part:>>>>>
We need to grow the tax base on the private dime! It's time folks start
asking who's financing our candidates in this years election, where are the
campaign volunteers coming from, who is developing the campaign messages?
Is anyone looking out for the property tax payer? The buck stops here!
<<<<<
While Bill Cullen had scribed:>>>>>
This is huge and this is frightening.
<<<<<
Others have made fine points too, but I want to suggest that those concerned
about this check out the book or DVD movie of "The Corporation." The DVD is
available at the Minneapolis Public Library, and book or DVD can be
purchased online at http://www.thecorporation.com/
The supreme Court's decision is a natural consequence of the legal fiction
of "the corporation" as a person. In fact corporations are now
"superpersons" and our so-called democratic political system as well as our
economic system respond to them as the only persons.
The most poignant testimony comes from Ray Anderson, founder and chairman of
the corporation Interface, Inc., the world's largest carpet manufacturer.
Anderson came to realize that his corporations -- like all corporations in
today's culture -- was the "present day instrument of destruction."
Compelled to intentionally ignore impacts on environment, workers, and
community, and compelled to use the political system to gain absolute power
over every aspect of "the market," the corporation must become inhumane in
order to compete. Anderson's story alone is worth the price of the book or
DVD. Once again, here is a chance for our highly-educated Minneapolis
citizenry to do some research and apply it to Minneapolis politics.
The power of eminent domain must be expanded as a means of externalizing
costs of development onto ordinary, hardworking people. Small property
owners may invest blood, sweat, and tears into homes or rental properties,
but they have no real property rights or "real estate." When a large
corporations or a syndicate of corporatists decides to acquire and use
property, the rights of individuals are shown for what they are --
essentially null and void.
Of course, there is no relationship between money and land -- any more than
between money and food, water, air, or work. Our economic rules are made
precisely in opposition to democratic principles, and precisely to assure
the domination of the many by a very few. (Neo-conservative political
scientist Levi Strauss from the U of Chicago -- teacher of Paul Wolfowitz,
amoung others -- made it clear that politics is a process whereby the
wealthy few manipulate the masses. Democracy is a useful tool, but nothing
is feared more than an excess of democracy.) The question is, what can we
do about this at the city level?
Regardless of the aspirations of individuals, corporations make the rules in
order to maximize profits to themselves and externalize costs onto others.
Citizens of Minneapolis are not seen as people in community. Rather, they
are a "resource" to be used and discarded in the cheapest possible way.
Minneapolis citizens are also seen as consumers to be seduced and
manipulated to extract the most money for the least investment on the part
of any given corporation. The only ethic permitted is that the strong use
and rule the weak. The rules of the so-called "free market" are rigged and
repeatedly revised at every level to protect those in positions of power and
privilege, and to further enmesh most people into a matrix of debt and
wage-slavery. A modest group of people must be sorted out to become
"professionals" in the managerial class, whose eyes, ears, and mouths are
conveniently stuffed with cash -- so that with any luck, they will see,
hear, and speak no evil. Lovely people are thus rendered unable to see
flaws in the system, let alone to speak truth to power. Politics becomes
distraction.
Citizens for Corporate Responsibility is working to make corporations
accountable to human citizens. The website is http://www.c4cr.org/
The folks at "The Corporation" have a good page of links as well. It seems
that small property owners might link up with the above folks.
Mike --what can a City Council person do about this? Use the office as a
small bully pulpit for the cause? Make decisions related to this? Network
and educate?
Get eaten alive?
-- pedaling for peace and ecojustice -- renting happily in Lynnhurst for
now -- Gary Hoover
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