Letters to the editor
https://www.crescent-news.com/opinion/letters_to_editor/letters-to-the-editor/article_5fe1c252-986d-11ed-b0b0-932322ea12b4.html
Jan 21,2023
Corporations have “personhood” rights and their money qualifies as “free speech.” They financially back the politicians and, once elected, lobby them to create laws on their behalf. This system has big pay-offs.
Oxfam just published “Survival of the richest,” and revealed that “95 food and energy corporations have more than doubled their profits in 2022. They made $306 billion in windfall profits and paid out $257 billion (84%) of that to rich shareholders.”
Thomas Jefferson foresaw the dangers of corporate power when he stated: “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.”
The citizens of Defiance realized the dangers inherent in corporate influence. They voted (67%) In the November election of 2013 in support of a movement to amend the U.S. Constitution to establish that corporations are not people and money is not speech. This was the result of a door-to-door canvass by a handful of volunteers in 2012 who educated their neighbors about corporate personhood.
Citizens heard the arguments and made their decision known. This was an exercise in true democracy.
Some say that our local politicians receive no money from any of the above, so this meeting is needless. Others know better. Most of the problems we face as citizens at the local level are caused by a federal and state government doing the bidding of those who elect them, the corporate money. We live in a corporatocracy, “an economic, political and judicial system controlled by corporations or corporate interests.” (Wikipedia)
As citizens we have the responsibility to be aware of threats to our government, meant to be “of, for, and by the people.” Please attend this meeting to learn how corporations became people, the history of Ohio corporations, and the effects of corporate personhood on all of us.
Dolores Whitman
rural Bryan
