March 10, 2010

I am wondering if you would be open to a refinement on the premise of
your conference?

Sometimes the questions we ask effect our ability to properly understand
the issues. I would suggest that some very interesting dialog could
come from asking if, in fact, the question should not be "Failed State,
or Dying Industry?" Over 20 years ago, Akido Morita, the founder of
Sony, said that government is a "dying industry" and that corporations
are the structures of the future. After the recent Supreme Court ruling
in Citizen's United v. Federal Election Commission, corporations now
have complete, unrestricted constitutional rights. Our body politic has
become the battleground for competing corporate interests and narrowly
focused special interests to the detriment of common sense and the
common good. NPR recently identified the individuals in a congressional
hearing room where the debate on Health Care was taking place and
someone asked, "Who is there representing me?" and unfortunately the
answer was no one.

It is the historic rise of the Corporate State that is threatening our
democratic mechanisms and the recent Supreme Court ruling is an
effective Coup d'Etat completing the transfer of power. However, just
as a few forward thinking individuals in the 1770's gave birth to idea
that a Nation could become the embodiment of a people, now is the time
for us to think about a Corporation as the embodiment of a people, with
all the sophisticated design parameters of civil accountability at play
(i.e. check and balances, separation of powers, and accountable elected
representatives).

This new concept is being called Corporate Peoplehood and works with the
body of law around the doctrine of corporate personhood, but instead of
fighting it uses its full force behind the needs of community.

Undemocratic concentrations of corporate capital are the greasy fast
foods we are shoving down the gullet of our democracy, and we can do all
the open heart surgeries we want, but we will always find ourselves back
on the same operating table if we don't change our diet.

With Hope and Determination,
Michael Rogers
www.sumpeople.org