april2013takeactionwebinar.pdf

Category: 

• Outreach & Promotion 
• Press & Media 
• Webinars

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (LTEs) 

Why are they important?

• Newspapers print letters they consider newsworthy.  Publication indicates to members of Congress (MOCs) and others that this is an important topic.

• The volume of letters submitted indicates the community’s level of interest. The more LTEs you submit, the more likely one will be published. 

• Even in today’s digital world, our MOCs use LTEs to get a pulse of what’s happening in their district.  MOCs review letters in their hometown papers every day, especially those that mention the MOC by name.  Pro tip: mention your MOC to praise or request support.

• LTEs provide MTA visibility in the community and as a way to find new members.

What articles or opinion pieces should I respond to?  Use this hierarchy:

1. Editorials and front-page news
   
2. Staff-written columns (i.e. by the newspaper’s own columnist)
3. Locally-written op-ed
4. Syndicated columnist
5. Inside news stories
6. Editorial cartoons
7. Other letters to the editor.

How do I write a letter to the editor?   Follow this formula:

To get a feel for what has been successful, review LTEs that have been published but generally

• Ask yourself—What is my message and how does it relate to the article that was in the paper recently?

• Reference the story or a specific part (line, thought, etc.) of the story.  A short reference praising the writer or paper works well.

• Transition quickly into how it relates to money as speech or corporate constitutional rights.

• Propose a solution—the We the People Amendment, HJR54.  This is the meat of your message.

• Present a call to action, e.g., write your MOC to support the WTP Amendment.

• Close creatively  and with strength by employing a rhetorical device such as repetition, a play on words or closing the circle from the letter’s beginning.

Do’s and Don’t’s :

• Check the newspaper’s editorial page or website for directions and follow them.  Some require you to use an online form for electronic submissions, others accept submissions by email. Find out the maximum number of words allowed and stay within this limit.  LTEs are often 150-250 words in length.

• Timing is important. The sooner you submit a letter the more likely it will be published.  Submit a LTE as early in the day as possible.

• Try to incorporate the use of metaphors and wit, but always be respectful and avoid negativity.  Disagree without being disagreeable.

• Don’t raise hot button issues unnecessarily.

• Stay on point and don’t try to say too much. Only make one or two points in the LTE.

• Don’t lecture or regurgitate the facts.  Write conversationally.

• Use dire warnings judiciously and ALWAYS couple warnings with a solution, The We the People Amendment, HJR 54.

• In the subject line of your email put “Re:(name of story and page#).” Letter editors will appreciate this time-saving practice.

Misc.

• Not everyone should sign their letter as being a volunteer with MTA because editors tend to lump all letters from one organization together and therefore may only choose one.

• Newspapers often limit the number of letters by a single writer that they will publish over a certain time span.

I got published! Now what?

• Thank the letter editor.

• Notify MTA by emailing your letter to [email protected] with the date of publication and name of the newspaper.

• Send a copy of the letter to your MOC.

OPINION PIECES AND OP-ED’S

• The term “op-ed” means opposite the editorial, where opinion pieces are frequently found.  
• Much of what has been said about LTEs also applies to op-eds, except they are longer, typically 650-850 words.  
• Who can submit an op-ed?  Who is getting published?  Some newspapers require that the op-ed author have some expertise or experience re the op-ed topic.  Research your paper’s policy.
• Has the paper covered your topic?  Extensively?  Recently?  Does your piece express a new or different viewpoint?  Research past editorials and op-eds.
• Why now?  What makes your op-ed especially newsworthy now?
• Newspapers want to publish original op-eds submitted exclusively to them.  Depending on the paper’s policy, it may be OK to submit them elsewhere several days after publication, if appropriately attributed.  
• Don’t submit the same op-ed to many papers at the same time.  Coordinate with  your affiliate or others in your area to make sure ONLY ONE PERSON submits the op-ed to each paper.  Also submit it beforehand to national MTA National [email protected]  [Subject: ATTENTION: LETTER TO THE EDITOR/ OP-ED – CITY, STATE] to prevent double submissions.
• Sometimes MTA will provide you with a template op-ed.  This means others throughout the country will also try to get it published.  You must modify it so it’s different, e.g., by adding information about local conditions or issues or how the op-ed issue is particularly affecting your area.

*Much of the preceding material was borrowed from Citizens’ Climate Lobby’s “Writing Effective Letters to the Editor” (http://community.citizensclimatelobby.org/cclu/writing-effective-letters-to-the-editor/). 

It has been edited and additional material added.  Permission from CCL Executive Director Mark Reynolds.  MTA thanks CCL and Mr. Reynolds for their cooperation.

SAMPLE LETTERS

Overturning Citizens United isn’t enough

Dear Editor,

The January 21, 2010 Citizens United decision has unquestionably reduced democracy in our country.

Total election spending was $14.4 billion in 2020, up from $5.3 billion in 2008, according to Open Secrets.The super rich and corporations were major sources of this flood of increased election spending, drowning out the political voices of the public majority unable to politically contribute. 

It’s a mistake, however, to believe that:

1. The constitutional doctrine that political money spent in elections equals “free speech” began with Citizens United. “Money is speech” goes back to the 1976 Buckley v. Valeo Supreme Court ruling.
   
   
2. The corporate “right” to spend money in elections began with Citizens United. That originated with the 1978 Supreme Court First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti case.
   
   
3. “Corporate personhood” began with Citizens United. That started in the 1880’s and currently includes the Supreme Court declaring First, Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment corporate constitutional rights that were intended solely for human persons. 

Citizens United is simply the latest in a long line of anti-democratic Supreme Court decisions that have empowered the super rich and corporations to trump the ability of We the People to make decisions protecting our lives, communities and the natural world. Needed is not simply a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United, but rather the We the People Amendment (HJR54) that would abolish the “money equals speech” and “a corporation is a person” bizarre constitutional doctrines. 

END WITH ONE OR THE OTHER SENTENCE

Representative firstname lastname is a HJR54 legislative co-sponsor and should be congratulated.

Representative firstname lastname should be urged to legislatively co-sponsor HJR54.

word count - 249 / 247 (depending on version)

Dear Editor,

The anniversary of the Citizens United vs. FEC Supreme Court decision is coming up on January 21.  It will be fourteen years since that damaging ruling was made.  

Since that time, campaign spending has vastly increased and we are assaulted by superficial messages on our televisions, radios, newspapers, phones, computers, newspapers and billboards every election season.  It has become distressingly difficult to find out what the actual issues are or hear any meaningful discussion of the issues facing our nation, states and communities.

Over more than 100 years, Supreme Court rulings have given human rights to legally chartered companies and organizations and expanded the definition of free speech to include unlimited spending on political speech i.e. campaigning. 

What’s a voter to do?  We need to put the people back in We the People! The We the People Amendment (House Joint Resolution 54) has been introduced in Congress.  Please encourage your Representative to co-sponsor it.

 word count- 156

OR please thank your Representative for being a co-sponsor.

 word count- 156

Dear Editor,

January 21 will be the fourteenth anniversary of the unpopular Citizens United Supreme Court decision.  Many people think that decision was when the money floodgates for campaign spending opened, but in fact there is a much longer history to the problem.

 Over more than a hundred years, Supreme Court rulings have expanded the definition of “person” to include fictional legal “persons” like corporations and organizations.  This has resulted in large corporations and organizations using their much greater resources than the average voter to influence legislation to the point where We the People have less and less to say about our own governance.

 The We the People Amendment, correcting this undemocratic situation, has been introduced in Congress. My Representative _________  _______ is a cosponsor  of the Amendment (House Joint Resolution 54) and I thank _(him/her/them)_for taking a stand.  I hope you will too.

 word count- 144 

OR My Representative ___________  ____________ is not yet a co-sponsor of the Amendment (House Joint Resolution 54).  I am asking _(her/him/them)_ to sign on as a co-sponsor and I hope you will too.

A few more than 144 words

Examples of 2 letters published in a small local weekly asking people to come to a City Council meeting about a resolution supporting an amendment.                                                

The Problem with Money    

Dear Editor,                                                                                   

      Huge concentrations of wealth are wrecking economic and social infrastructure worldwide. Greed, the shadow side of money, is working its influence behind the scenes in politics. Recently, the rising monied aristocracy has been emboldened, no longer needing to deal with regulators in order to pocket politicians, This aristocracy can now step out into the open, because Campaign contributions can now be unlimited and elections can be even more easily bought. The Supreme Court has made this legal, moving against the common man by voting to give corporations the same rights as people and money the rights of free speech.

      I believe this example of misrule to be so egregious that all citizens, regardless of party allegiance, should be galvanized against it. Our local community should speak out with a resounding “no”! What do we do? We should think globally and act locally, re-imagining money and creating our own, as many communities are beginning to do both here and abroad. More importantly, for the moment, we need to turn back this recent Supreme Court ruling by supporting an amendment to the U.S. Constitution which would abolish corporate personhood and overturn the absurd ruling that political spending is the equivalent of free speech. Visit www.MoveToAmend.org. We in Willits can join the other governing bodies in the county that have passed a resolution calling for the return of our democracy and our elections back to us, the people, and reclaiming our sovereign right to self-governance. 

     Please join us Wednesday, May 14, at 6:30 pm at Willits City Hall.  We need a crowd. 

 word count- 266

Dear Editor, 

On May 14th the Willits City Council will be considering a resolution to join the nationwide movement to amend the US Constitution to end corporate personhood in accordance with Advisory Measure F passed by voters in Mendocino County in 2012 by a margin of 75%. The measure advised all governmental bodies in the county to pass a corresponding resolution to demand of our state and federal legislators that they initiate and pass the constitutional amendment. All other city and county governmental bodies in Mendocino County have already passed such resolutions except Willits.

Why is this a local issue and why is it important, you might ask. 

 The US Constitution does not mention corporations nor their status with respect to personal constitutional rights. However, through a series of court decisions beginning in 1886, legal precedent has been established to allow corporations to claim all of the constitutional rights – e.g. as defined in the Bill of Rights – including right to privacy, equal opportunity and free speech. This precedent was finalized by the more recent Supreme Court ruling in the case known as Citizens United v. FEC, which not only explicitly confirmed corporate personhood but also equated monetary spending with free speech, thus overturning all campaign finance limitations that had been or could be democratically established by our elected officials. This outrageous ruling has effectively undermined any ability WE THE PEOPLE might have in determining our own lives. It has opened up the floodgates of corporate bribery and allowed the super wealthy to essentially turn our democracy into an oligarchy (AKA corporatocracy). 

 Among other things these misguided court determinations overrule any local (or even state and federal level) democratic decision-making when it comes to preventing some undesirable corporate behavior, i.e. limiting their ability to run roughshod over us. They can and, in fact, have claimed that such decisions are an infringement on their “constitutional rights” to privacy, equal opportunity, and/or free speech and are thus null and void. Consequently local communities have been repeatedly rebuked when they have – with a majority vote – successfully passed a resolution denying corporations a permit to establish operations in their regions or even limiting their activities.

 The movement to amend the constitution is now well on its way and endorsed by voters with wide margins everywhere it has been put on a ballot. Hundreds of local communities and several states have already passed resolutions in support of the amendment. It is time for Willits to get on board. The groundswell to reclaim our democracy must continue and the Willits voters have already told their council we want to be part of it. The amendment will only become a reality if WE THE PEOPLE stand together to fend off the power the corporations currently wield over us.

 Come to the council meeting on May 14th and show your support for a constitutional amendment to end corporate rule through the phony guise of “personhood”. This is without doubt the most critical issue of our times.

 word count- 495 

SAMPLE OP-ED 

​​What Hath Citizens’ United Wrought?  The View After 14 Years

By John Fioretta, Esq. and _____________________

 On January 21, 2010 the Supreme Court decided the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case, which gave corporations and labor unions a First Amendment right to make unlimited independent contributions to support or oppose candidates for elected office.  Subsequent cases further eroded the federal Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act so individuals may now do so as well.  The result has been a flood of money into our political system fundamentally corrupting our democracy. 

• In the 2010 midterm election, the first after Citizens United, total spending on all federal elections was over $4.9 billion.  It rose to more than $8.9 billion in 2022, a 181 percent increase. 
  
  
• For the 20 years preceding Citizens United, non-party independent groups spent $750,000,000.  In the 10 years afterwards they spent $4.5 billion, a six-fold increase.   
         
• During the decade before Citizens United, dark money groups—non-profits not required to disclose their donors—contributed $129,000,000.  In the decade following they gave $963,000,000, over seven times more.

 The Supreme Court’s majority opinion in Citizens’ United authored by Justice Kennedy stated that “[w]ith the advent of the Internet, prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable…This transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages.”  Citizens’ United v. FEC, 558 U.S. 310 (2010).  This statement didn’t reflect reality at the time and is even less accurate now.  By 2015 even Justice Kennedy said that the disclosure system was"not working the way it should" and criticized federal agencies for not requiring more disclosure.  

What else hath Citizens’ Unite wrought?  Even more harmful impacts on the states. 

• In a study of six states published in 2016 the Brennan Center found that gray money increased from 15 percent in 2006 to 59 percent in 2014 of all outside spending.  Gray money is “spending by state super PACs that reported other PACs as donors, making it impossible to identify original donors without sifting through multiple layers of PAC disclosures.” 
  
  
• In the six states examined, full transparency of spending plunged from 76 percent in 2006 to 29 percent in 2014. 
  
  
• From 2006-2014 Dark Money increased on average in these states by 38 times. 
  
  
• Though legally required to disclose their donors, state super PACs often receive donations from Dark Money PACs which need not disclose theirs.  During the same time period such donations multiplied 49 times from under $190,000 to more than $9.2 million. 
  
  
• Perhaps the worse impact of secret money at the state level is that when it can be tracked it is “traced back to such sources as a mining company targeting a state legislator who held a key role opposing quicker mining permits, payday lenders supporting an attorney general who promised to shield them from regulation, and food companies battling a ballot measure to add labeling requirements.”  In other words, when brought to light it can be shown to very directly affect policy-making.
  
  
• Compared to federal elections, it doesn’t take as much money to have influence at the state level.  Therefore these large increases in Gray Money are particularly problematic. 

Let’s let lobbyist and former Republican majority whip in the Arizona House of Representatives, Chris Herstam, sum it up: “In my 33 years in Arizona politics and government, dark money is the most corrupting influence I have seen.” 

When one watches election ads on TV or social media postings regarding political campaigns it’s not difficult to imagine how all this new cash is used, negatively and often without the consumer knowing whose dollars are behind it.   So it isn’t surprising that in an October 2023 poll 72 percent of Americans said “there should be limits on the amount of money individuals and organizations can spend on political campaigns.”  Contrary to the Citizens’ United ruling merely 11 percent of those polled said persons and organizations should be able to spend unlimited amounts. 

What can we do to stem this rising tide of Big, Dark and Gray Money to our elected officials, campaigns for public office, and elections?  Because Citizens’ United was decided by the Supreme Court and granted constitutional rights, the Court must reverse itself or we must enact a constitutional amendment overturning it.  Given the composition of the Supreme Court a constitutional amendment is the only realistic option.  

The We the People Act, House Joint Resolution 54 in the present Congress, would overturn Citizens’ United and put the authority to regulate campaign finance back where it belongs, with the People’s representatives in Congress, as well as rein in corporate power (more at www.movetoamend.org).  Urge your federal representatives to co-sponsor this urgently needed anti-corruption measure. 

Word count- 772 

Talking Points on Corporate Constitutional Rights

1. Democracy is founded on the premise that the People are the source of all power.
   
   
2. We the People’ created corporations as tools to serve us, not themselves. As sovereigns we can regulate and restrict corporations as we see fit. The Supreme Court’s invention of constitutional rights for corporations has turned this fundamental principle on its head.
   
   
3. For the first 100 plus years of our history, corporations were strictly controlled and had no constitutional rights.  Corporations could not even exist unless state legislation—called charters—created them.
   
   
4. Statutes created corporations to give them the powers needed to conduct business for the peoples’ benefit. Logic dictates that corporations have only those rights granted them by statute. Statutes cannot create constitutional rights.
   
   
5. Corporations do not need constitutional rights to conduct business. Logically, an entity created to serve people should not have the same constitutional rights as those people it is supposed to serve.
   
   
6. Corporations are not mentioned in the Constitution. So the framers did not think they should have constitutional rights (CRs.) But, starting with the 1819 Dartmouth case, SCOTUS inserted corporations into the Constitution and progressively invented CRs for corporations, giving corporations most of the same constitutional rights as natural persons like you and me.
   
   
7. The corporate constitutional rights doctrine created by SCOTUS is not supported by logic, history or law. SCOTUS has never explained why artificial entities like corporations should have the same constitutional rights as natural persons when corporations do not need CRs to do business and  have special advantages that individual persons do not have, e.g. perpetual life and limited liability.
   
   
8. The Supreme Court's CCR jurisprudence has used ever shifting rhetorical devices and rationales for reaching the desired result in any given case. This incoherent and undemocratic  body of law exists in defiance of the purpose and plain meaning of the constitutional text. For example  SCOTUS “found" CCRs under the 14th Amendment, created to ensure the rights of former slaves, the text of which applies only to “All persons born or naturalized in the United States” which corporations cannot be. 
   
   
9. The SCOTUS-created CCR doctrine fueled corporate power to the point that the modern multinational corporation is the most dominant institution on earth, dwarfing many countries in wealth, power and influence.
   
   
10. This court-made CCR doctrine has allowed corporations to abuse and harm the human beings they are supposed to serve. In addition to using their so-called free speech rights under the First Amendment to buy politicians, corporations have used other CCRs such as the Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to undemocratically impose pollution, water contamination, environmental destruction, harm to workers and other assaults on unwilling local communities and individuals in derogation of local control, the police power, and democracy itself.
    
    
11. A series of Supreme Court decisions created the same political free speech rights for corporations under the First Amendment as originally belonged only to  natural persons. This allows corporations to spend  enormous amounts of corporate money to influence politics, policy and who gets elected to public office.   This tsunami of unregulated, undisclosed money drowns  out the people’s voice which is neither heard nor heeded.*
    
    
12. “A majority of people want reforms such as lower drug prices, greater\affordable health care,  climate change reduction, and infrastructure repair.” But what the people want rarely gets enacted because Congress relies on large donor and corporate campaign contributions which makes Congress beholden to their wealthy donors instead of the people they should represent. And, even if these reforms were enacted, they could be toppled if SCOTUS found they violated some corporation’s constitutional rights.  
    
    
13. SCOTUS has used two contradictory analogies to give free speech rights to corporations.

One, the association or partnership analogy imagines that the corporation is a mere aggregation of its shareholder members and merely speaks for them. But shareholders do not own the corporation, they own stock in it. Also, many shareholders are corporations themselves.  This theory is flawed on several grounds. Because corporate law imposes a fiduciary duty on corporate officers to maximize profits, its officials cannot make decisions that represent the values of any human being. Human shareholders have values and interests other than maximizing the corporation’s profits.  Also, the corporation’s wealth derives from many other stakeholders, e.g., its employees and consumers, with divergent interests of their own. The corporation misappropriates the wealth contributed by these stakeholders when it spends corporate money to influence politics and policy. The association theory is also inconsistent with limited liability.

 The other, entity theory, is that the corporation is an independent entity, separate from its human members. As such, it is an independent speaker with its own views and that denying or restricting its voice violates the First Amendment because the public is denied the ability to hear what the corporation has to say. (Note: it turns out that the  human public only gets to hear what the corporations want them to hear while, because of the right not to speak, the public does not get to hear what they want to hear—e.g, what’s in the products we use.  This theory is also flawed because corporations cannot exist without being created by a government which lacks the power to create CRs.

    SCOTUS has used both of these contradictory theories in the same case—e.g., CU.

*Cite  https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf See also, professors Joshua Kalla and Ethan Porter,“Politicians Don’t Actually Care What Voters Want.” A two year survey revealed that “an overwhelming majority of legislators were uninterested in learning about their constituents views” and that “for most politicians, voters’ views seemed almost irrelevant.https://osf.io/c2sp6/ . For a brief description of this study, see “Politicians Don’t Care What youThink”, N.Y. Times, OP-ED, A-23, July 11, 2019.

The East India Company was founded on this date in 1600. It was chartered (i.e. licensed) by the British Crown to trade in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia and later with East Asia. It eventually became the largest corporation on earth.

  East India Company flag, 1801

The company achieved not only its main purpose of facilitating economic trade (involving spices, tea, silk, opium… and slaves). It was also given the authority to colonize and rule. The corporation was in essence the government over large parts of India that extended British imperialism with the capacity to administer laws and collect taxes. It had its own army that was twice the size of the British force to enforce laws and to quell popular uprisings. 

______________________

On this "corporate rule" anniversary, please make a New Year’s resolution to (re)commit to working together to affirm our rights over corporate "rights." Start by generously contributing to our end-of-year financial match drive. We urgently need to reach our goal to start 2023 on a strong footing.

______________________

The corporation’s trade monopoly in parts of the world included the monopoly of tea sales in the American colonies, thanks to the Tea Act passed by the British Parliament. This sparked the “Boston Tea Party” in December, 1773.

Over several centuries, the corporation and the British Crown and elites in the government worked hand-in-hand to economically, politically and militarily plunder people and resources.

There is no single corporation today as dominant as the East India Company at its peak - though ExxonMobil Corporation, for example, may be close. However, business corporations collectively are much more powerful today in determining economic, political and military policies -- and impact virtually every aspect of society.

July 27, 2015

Move to Amend brings you voices from the movement to amend the Constitution through our internet radio program. Every Thursday at 5pm Pacific/8pm Eastern. This is a call-in program. Call (646) 652-2345 and press 1 to participate.

TUNE IN TO MOVE TO AMEND REPORTS EVERY THURSDAY NIGHT AT 5pm PACIFIC / 8pm EASTERN.

Get reminders about shows so you never forget to tune in - go here and click the "Follow" link in the middle of the page.

This July marks one year since the city of Detroit proceeded to shutoff water for tens of thousands of low-income households behind on their bills, an act the United Nations condemned as a human rights violation. Under Michigan's Public Act 436, also known as the "Emergency Manager Law," the democratic process has been suspended for Detroit and other Michigan communities under the guise of improving their "financial management." For decades, Detroit has served as a testing ground for how private corporations can takeover local governments, privatize their public infrastructure and services, and pillage community resources absent any form of accountability to the people who live here. This has become a model for the corporate takeover of cities around the United States to pursue their own versions of Michigan's "Emergency Manager Law."In solidarity with the people of Detroit, we are spending this month highlighting their community's struggle for social, economic, environmental and cultural justice. Each week, we will feature local residents, community organizers, and cultural activists struggling with the dangerous effects of corporate rule and how they are working to transform Detroit into a self-governing, sustainable community with a healthy culture.  

July 9th

In the face of corporate rule over media and entertainment, young and upcoming artists are struggling to support themselves with their skills and talent without having their cultural products appropriated and used up by exploitative music executives. Local artists, producers and community organizers Bryce Detroit, Piper Carter, and Greg "GMAC" Mckenzie join us to provide an introduction to entertainment justice.Bryce Detroit is a composer, music producer, performer, curator and entertainment justice activist. For the past 3 years, he has led an intergenerational charge to ‘bridge the gap’ between Detroit’s legendary musical pioneers and the city’s young emergent innovators. As founder of Detroit Recordings Company, and co-founder of Detroit Afrikan Music Institution, he uses entertainment arts to promote new Afrikan and Indigenous legacies, cultural literacy, and new music economies. As a prominent community advocate, Bryce works as the Director of Commons Relations for East Michigan Environmental Action Council, serves as a founding member of Oakland Avenue Artists Coalition and the Detroit Future Youth Network.  

Piper Carter is a Community Organizer in the Environmental Justice, Maker Space, Food Justice, and Entertainment Justice communities living inside Detroit. As an Image Maker, Piper is also the Co-Founder of the Foundation of Women in Hip Hop, a Founding member of the Detroit Digital Justice Coalition, Multimedia Artist for Jessica Care Moore’s Black Women Rock, a Founding member of Cosmic Slop a Michigan based Black Rock Coalition, and Adult Ally for Detroit Future Youth.

Gregory McKezie, also abbreviated as GMAC,  is a father, community activist, entrepreneur, emcee and producer.  GMAC released "Laidbackness" from his label Impeccable Projects, Inc. in 2011 and will be releasing "Furious Styles" in 2015.  Stemming from his own words: “When I was 19, I vowed to speak the truth when I rap," the lyrical content in GMAC's albums are rooted in Pan African nationalism, the urban black experience, and “reality in progress” from the multitude of activities he engages. He has performed with many artists across generational lines from artists such as Dead Prez to Last Poets. His principal training is in Accounting, but he is an avid reader of African history and quantum physics. His community affiliations include Coalition for Justice and Respect for Black Life, Detroit Black Community Food Security Network, Alkebu-lan Village, Inc., African Source Movement and Restoring the Neighbor Back to the Hood.  The past two years, he served as co-chair of the African Liberation Day Planning Committee. 

Click here to listen to this week's show.
 

July 16th

In a media industry dominated by a handful of corporations, women struggle against a corporate patriarchy which undervalues their skills and cultural contributions, even as they profit from media content reinforcing the objectification of their sex. This week features local organizer and poet Tawana “Honeycomb” Petty talking with us about how women are uplifting their voices and resisting sexism in Hip Hop culture.

  Tawana Petty is a mother, award winning activist, social justice organizer, poet and author. Tawana is committed to social justice and youth advocacy, and is heavily engaged in transformative visionary organizing on the ground in Detroit. She is a board member of the James and Grace Lee Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership and a member of Detroiters Resisting Emergency Management, We the People of Detroit, the People’s Water Board Coalition and The Foundation of Women in Hip Hop. In addition to Tawana’s social justice work and community organizing, she performs and speaks across the globe. She has been a featured guest on several local and national radio programs including the Tavis Smiley Show, NPR/WDET, and Occupy Radio. Her work and writings have also been featured in the Huffington Post, The Michigan Daily, The Michigan Citizen, on Shetroit.com, on truth-out.org and in Red Pepper Magazine (UK). Tawana, also known as Honeycomb on stage, is the author of Introducing Honeycomb and is currently working on her second book, due out this year.

Click here to listen to this week’s show.
 

July 23rd

As thousands of Detroit residents struggle over basic rights to water and other public resources, the community continues to fight for their right to self-determination over their environment. We talk with Ahmina Maxey of Zero Waste Detroit and William Copeland of the East Michigan Environmental Action Council about their ongoing struggle for environmental justice in Detroit.

  Ahmina Maxey is a community activist in Detroit, Michigan working for the environmental health and protection of her community. As the Community Outreach Coordinator of Zero Waste Detroit coalition, she advocates to increase recycling participation in the city and shut down the Detroit incinerator.  Ahmina has experience working in the environmental justice field, having worked as an Associate Director at the East Michigan Environmental Action Council (EMEAC), and Research Assistant at the Multicultural Environmental Leadership Development Initiative.  In her work at EMEAC, her responsibilities included health and environmental justice policy, advocacy, and outreach work. She has worked with City Council members on measures to improve Detroit’s air quality, leading to the passage of numerous laws protecting the environment and health of Detroiters. Ahmina is a graduate of the University of Michigan, earning her Bachelor of Science in the Program in the Environment in 2007.

  William Copeland is an organizer and cultural worker from Detroit. He works as EMEAC's Climate Justice Director. He served as one of the local coordinators for the 2010 US Social Forum, organizing over 300 Detroit-area volunteers to host 20,000+ activists and community change agents to 5 days of workshops, panels, concerts, and work projects. He also worked as lead organizer of the 2011 Detroit 2 Dakar Delegation to the World Social Forum held in Dakar, Senegal. He has significant affiliations with the healing justice movements in Detroit and nationwide and is also currently working on creating the D.Blair Theater Space in the Cass Corridor Commons. Copeland serves on the board of the US Solidarity Economy Network. Will See dropped his first solo hip-hop CD "The Basics" which includes EJ anthems such as "Water Power" "Take tha House Back" and "Respiration."available at http://willseemusic.bandcamp.com/ His second project is a spiritual mixtape called SOL SWGGR found at http://www.audiomack.com/album/will-see/sol-swggr.   

Click here to listen to this week’s show.
 

July 30th

Unelected officials are privatizing public services and selling off community assets in Detroit and other Michigan communities, and local residents are doing what they can to fight back against corporate rule. We talk about organizing within Detroit’s black community and how they are building a self-determining community with local organizer and cultural activist Will Copeland.

 William Copeland is an organizer and cultural worker from Detroit. He works as EMEAC's Climate Justice Director. He served as one of the local coordinators for the 2010 US Social Forum, organizing over 300 Detroit-area volunteers to host 20,000+ activists and community change agents to 5 days of workshops, panels, concerts, and work projects. He also worked as lead organizer of the 2011 Detroit 2 Dakar Delegation to the World Social Forum held in Dakar, Senegal. He has significant affiliations with the healing justice movements in Detroit and nationwide and is also currently working on creating the D.Blair Theater Space in the Cass Corrido

r Commons. Copeland serves on the board of the US Solidarity Economy Network. Will See dropped his first solo hip-hop CD "The Basics" which includes EJ anthems such as "Water Power" "Take tha House Back" and "Respiration."available at http://willseemusic.bandcamp.com/. His second project is a spiritual mixtape called SOL SWGGR found athttp://www.audiomack.com/album/will-see/sol-swggr. 

Click here to listen to this week's show.

Move to Amend Reports is hosted by Laura Bonham and Egberto Willies, members of Move to Amend's National Leadership Team. Executive producer is Keyan Bliss. Production team is Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap, Keyan Bliss, Laura Bonham and Egberto Willies.

Your support is so critical in the fight to getting the We the People Amendment passed. Move to Amend is funded by grassroots donations from people like you. We are committed to maintaining our independence and our integrity and we need your support to make it possible! 

Register now at GiveButter.com to bid on incredible items and contribute to the movement for a more equitable future: https://givebutter.com/c/movetoamend/auction

Join our End of Year auction hosted on GiveButter.com – an opportunity for you to contribute to our movement and snag some fantastic items in the process!

Browse through our incredible array of items in the auction – from unique handmade crafts to exclusive experiences. Your bids directly fuel our grassroots movement. Explore the Auction Now! 

Make your bids now and spread the word! The auction ends soon, and we encourage you not to wait until the last minute to secure your favorite items.

Here's how to Register on GiveButter:

1. Visit GiveButter.com and click "Sign Up" in the top right corner.
2. Fill in your details to create an account.
3. Verify your email address to complete the registration process.
4. Once registered, explore the Move to Amend auction and start bidding!

Citizens United opened a loophole: Foreign governments, foreign businesses and foreign individuals can invest in U.S. corporations, and those corporations can spend unlimited amounts from their corporate treasuries on U.S. elections. 

The clock is now ticking with less than a month to pass AB 83, The Get Foreign Money Out of California Elections Act out of the Assembly!

AB 83, the Get Foreign Money Out of California Elections Act, (add your name below) closes the loophole that allows foreign money to pour into California campaigns, candidates, political parties, PACs, Super-PACS and ballot measures “indirectly", undermining our capacity for self-governance...

Copy and paste the Personal Tracking Link below to social media and/or send it out in an email or text message to ask your friends to join your Pro-Democratic/Anti-Corporate Power Statutory Reforms Campaign. Start inviting people who live in your state ASAP! 

Here is example text to post to invite your friends to join you:

I'm working with Move to Amend to reduce the power of corporate entities from hijacking the political process.  Will you join this important campaign with me?

Rights and Privileges Timeline Exercise

The Move to Amend Coalition is a grassroots campaign to amend the Constitution to state that artificial entities such as corporations, unions, and non-profits do not have inherent rights under the Constitution, and that money is not free speech so campaign spending can be regulated. MTA focuses on movement building and community organizing, emphasizing leadership from communities most impacted by corporate power such as people of color, low-income people, women, LGBTQIA+ people and youth.

MTA is structured to empower grassroots community leaders through affiliate groups that organize locally for the amendment campaign. The coalition’s “We the People Amendment” was introduced in Congress in February 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2021 and soon 2023. Representative Pramila Jayapal will introduce the We the People Amendment into the 118th Congress.

Hale v. Henkel, probably one of the most cited cases (over 1,600 times), was decided by the United States Supreme Court on this day, in 1906.

...117 years later, Hale v Henkel keeps granting Corporations an ill-gotten right to privacy. 

As we all know, Corporations are not mentioned anywhere in the U.S. Constitution, but thanks to the rulings of activist Supreme Court Justices, Corporations hijacked the Constitution and Rights that were intended only for individuals. Hale v Henkel is a prime example. 

In this case, the SCOTUS established the power of a federal grand jury engaged in an investigation into corporate misconduct to require the corporation in question to surrender its records.

The Ruling: 

"An order for the production of books and papers may constitute an unreasonable search and seizure within the Fourth Amendment. While a search ordinarily implies a quest by an officer of the law, and a seizure contemplates a forcible dispossession of the owner, still the substance of the offense is the compulsory production of private papers, whether under a search warrant or a subpoena duces tecum, against which the person, be [an] individual or corporation, is entitled to protection."

The #WeThePeopleAmendment will be introduced in Congress sometime in the next few weeks.

This amendment makes clear that only human beings have Constitutional rights (not corporations) and that money is not speech so that campaign spending can be regulated and big money can be eliminated from the political process.

This critical amendment is necessary to move forward on just about every other issue you care about, from climate change to election integrity to police brutality and human rights!

Our goal is to get at least 100 co-sponsors on the #WeThePeopleAmendment -- so we need at least 3-5 constituents in each district to hold a successful lobby meeting... sign up below!

The meetings will all be virtual and online and will take about 20-30 mins. Move to Amend organizers will help you prepare for the meeting and work with you to ensure it is a success!

What is needed to participate:

• High speed internet and computer with video capability (if this is a challenge for you, let us know and we will see if we can make it work)
• A passion for passing the #WeThePeopleAmendment to end corporate rule and get big money out of politics
• 1-2 hours to prepare your statement during the meeting and join a prep call with Move to Amend organizers and other volunteers 
• 20-30 minutes during a week day (between 9am-5pm ET) for the meeting with your Representative and/or a member of their staff (to be scheduled by their office)

Can we count you in to join the meeting?

1. Corporations aren’t mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. The Bill of Rights and other Amendments were intended to apply solely to human beings. Governments originally created corporate entities (i.e. business corporations, unions, non-profits) through charters, which defined the extent of actions of corporate entities. Excluded were any form of political activities. Corporations do and should have “statutory” rights/protections (i.e. the ability to sue/be sued, to establish contracts, etc.).

1. Constitutional rights were granted to corporate entities exclusively by courts. No law, no regulation or decree enacted by any elected representative at any level of government representing any political party, or citizen initiative granted these rights. Since corporations aren’t mentioned in the Constitution, all these decisions were examples of judicial activism as courts anointed “corporate personhood” out of thin air. 

1. The People are concerned. Polling makes it clear that the public across the political spectrum believe large business corporations are too powerful (economically and politically) and that there is too much concentration by too few corporations in virtually every business sector. This makes it virtually impossible for medium or small businesses to compete.

1. Prominent conservatives take this stance. Conservatives have spoken out against not only the political power of labor union corporations but also the political power of business corporations. These include:

President Abraham Lincoln

“We may congratulate ourselves that this cruel war is nearing its end. It has cost a vast amount of treasure and blood… It has indeed been a trying hour for the Republic; but I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”

President Teddy Roosevelt in his "New Nationalism" Speech, 1910

"The true friend of property, the true conservative, is he who insists that property shall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth; who insists that the creature of man’s making shall be the servant and not the master of the man who made it. The citizens of the United States must effectively control the mighty commercial forces, which they have called into being… There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains. To put an end to it will be neither a short nor an easy task, but it can be done."

1. The “Community Rights Movement” is growing. This movement across the country – disproportionately present in rural areas –opposes the reduction of their Home Rule powers and/or the preemption of the “police powers” of local public officials to protect the health, safety, welfare and morals of their communities by oftentimes out-of-state corporate interests. These interests appeal to courts or to a “higher” level of government (state or federal) claiming their interests or “constitutional rights” have been violated. Courts and state laws have overturned laws and regulations that prevent the local “right to decide” on numerous issues protecting people, places and/or the local environment.

1. Family farms support our amendment. Several Midwestern states (i.e. Nebraska, the Dakotas and others) have seen ballot measures supported by family farmers pass banning non family farm-owned agribusiness only to see those grassroots initiatives overturned by courts who agreed with agribusinesses that the initiatives “discriminated” against them based on the 14th Amendment (which was intended to apply exclusively to freed slaves).

1. Small businesses support getting big money out of elections. Small business coalitions like the American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA) and others oppose the increasing ability of corporations to spend money in elections since it distorts the political playing field. Many/most small businesses can’t compete with major national or transnational corporations in terms of political campaign contributions and the influence that those contributions produce. Political money spent on elections directly by corporate entities has been affirmed as a form of First Amendment-protected “free speech” right by the Supreme Court. 

1. Labor unions should be restricted in political spending. Labor unions (a type of corporate entity) spend considerable sums in political elections seeking to influence public officials at the federal, state and local levels. As with political spending by business corporations, such political spending drowns out the political voices of individuals without money and not represented by unions who can’t have their voices heard, needs met and communities helped.

1. Food safety is an issue. Individuals across the country have never been more concerned about the food they and their families consume. An important element in ensuring safe food is the consumer’s “right to know” the ingredients of food products. Corporate entities have resisted in some instances food labeling, claiming their First Amendment right “not to speak.” Courts agreed. Thus, corporate rights have been deemed superior over individual rights to safe food.

1. Citizens are speaking out. The nation-wide effort to end all forms of corporate constitutional rights has led to the passage of hundreds of citizen-driven ballot measures and votes in town hall meetings across the country. These have been passed in politically and ideologically diverse communities – based on the realization that corporate entities have abused/misused the U.S. Constitution to hijack democracy/sovereignty/self-determination/the right to decide.

BONUS: The proposed Constitutional Amendment (the We the People Amendment) that would end all forms of corporate personhood of all corporate entities is conservative since it calls for shifting back from the judicial to the legislative arena the power and authority of We the People to define the proper role of corporate entities and money in elections – where originally it once was and was originally meant to be.

2024 Goal

This year we need to secure 100 House of Representatives Co-Sponsors of the We the People Amendment).

Join the Campaign!

STEP 1: Click here to sign up. We'll connect you with other Move to Amend supporters in your state/district to get started.

STEP 2: Review the Materials Below.

STEP 3: Schedule meetings with your Representative and/or Senators! Once scheduled, click here to let us know the details about your upcoming meeting(s).

STEP 4: After your scheduled meetings, tell us the results! (FORM COMING SOON!)

Campaign Launch Webinar

Become acquainted with what you will be asking for. Check out these resources:

• We the People Amendment
• Talking Points
• Amendment Comparison
• Corporate Constitutional Rights Background Information

Practice telling your story. We encourage you to practice telling your story in advance to increase confidence for your meetings.

Learn more about your Senators and Representatives. It is helpful to familiarize yourself with your members’ priorities and views by visiting their websites at www.senate.gov or www.house.gov. Also check to see if they have co-sponsored any of the competing amendment resolutions.

Be prepared to meet with your legislator’s legislative assistant. Your legislator may not attend the meeting. Staff may be young, but they are instrumental in shaping the legislator’s views. It is not unusual for the legislator to defer to his/her staff for an opinion on your issue. It is important to demonstrate respect to everyone you encounter during your visit.

If meeting in person, bring contact information. A business card from work, or a 2 x 3.5 inch card you print yourself, should contain your name, address and email information. 

Plan to dress appropriately. Please wear clean and appropriate professional attire (suits, dress pants; shirts with ties; dresses; skirts and blouses; etc.) for your meetings with lawmakers. No jeans, sandals, flip flops or printed tee shirts. 

Schedule Your Meeting(s)

Expect it to take about 2-3 weeks to land your meeting. Note that many offices will not confirm a meeting until 1 week out. 

Our suggestion is that you try to meet with both your House member, to secure co-sponsorship of the We the People Amendment, and also meet with your Senators since our goal is to get the amendment introduced in the Senate this year too.

Appointments may either be made by emailing the legislator’s scheduling person, or by phone. Every office differs in their preferred scheduling process, so please check with them to determine which process to use. Be sure to be persistent if you don't get a response, and don't just rely on email alone!

Phone Script

“Hello, my name is [name] from Move to Amend. May I please speak to the in-District scheduler?” (Write down the scheduler’s name. Be sure to get the correct spelling.)

“I am a constituent of Representative / Senator [NAME] and I would like to schedule a virtual meeting with Representative / Senator [NAME] and/or her/his Legislative staff person the next time [she/he] is in District. I'd like to discuss the We the People Amendment and the importance of addressing the problem of big money in elections and corporate influence over the political and legal process."

"May we do this on the phone, or would you prefer an email or fax?”

At this point, you may either continue, or take down the email address. Although you should make every effort to get a meeting with the legislator, many times you will be referred to the appropriate staff person, e.g., the one who handles legislative or government affairs issues.

If you are able to continue on the phone, let the scheduler know who is coming:

“At this time, the following people will be attending: [list names and affiliations].

Note: You may have to contact the office several times before someone returns your call or confirms an appointment. Be persistent and proactive—you are calling as a voting constituent!

Sample Email

Dear [Name of Scheduler],

Volunteers with the national Move to Amend campaign would very much appreciate a virtual meeting with [Senator]/[Representative] [Name] the next time [she/he] is in District and/or [his]/[her] Legislative staff person to discuss the We the People Amendment and the importance of addressing the problem of big money in elections and corporate influence over the political and legal process. 

Among attendees will be [Insert names of participants from the Rep’s home state and their towns]. There may be others at the meeting as well, but I am unable to confirm the names at this time.

Thank you so much for your consideration of our request.

Cordially,

[Your name]

Meeting Tips

Visit as a group if possible. The leader should start and conclude the meeting. One group member must take notes and report back the details of each meeting. Make sure you assign this task in your group before you are at the visit!

The constituents are most important. The legislators’ primary concern is whether you can elect him or her into office. If you live in the district you are important. The spokesperson should begin the meeting by identifying himself/herself as a constituent and introducing all participants, and briefly identify your request early in case time runs short.

Cover the priority issue. Now is the time you’ve been waiting for! Tell your story and explain why passing the We the People Amendment is important to you. Make your remarks brief and to the point. Encourage them to learn more and do more.

Stay on topic. Be careful: a little chit-chat is acceptable, but be sure to stay on topic and not be drawn into storytelling—you’ll never know where the time went! Be concise and stick to the issue at hand, but do not rush the conversation. Don’t make statements that assume that others share your political views and be respectful when talking about all political leaders.

Solicit the legislator’s views on this issue. Review your request and do some research on your legislator. Has your legislator taken the Pledge to Amend? Have they endorsed other amendment measures? If they have shown support for similar measures thank them appropriately and encourage them to sign on to the We the People Amendment. If there is disagreement, avoid arguing with your legislator or their staff. Listen to his/her perspective and then present your views. You will enhance your effectiveness if you can demonstrate a willingness to participate in a friendly exchange of ideas.

Record the questions and responses of your legislator and their staff using the online reporting form - (FORM COMING SOON!) this is really important for follow up!)

Conclude your meeting. Make sure your legislator and/or staff has a copy of the briefing information and your primary contact information. Thank them for their time and offer to be a resource to them going forward.

Take a picture! Especially if you are a group, take your picture with your legislator or their staffer -- this is a historic day!

--> As soon as the meeting is over, please submit the Online Reporting Form (FORM COMING SOON!) to let us know the results of the meeting. 

Meeting Follow-up

Thank Yous. Send a thank you letter to your Legislator or their staffer following the meeting. Thank the legislator and/or staff person for their time and reiterate your “ask” that they co-sponsor the We the People Amendment. Put this letter in the mail as soon as you get home or mail it before you leave. [Example coming soon!]

Meeting Report Back Forms. The note taker should fill out this form ASAP after the meeting while the details are fresh in your mind. Use the notes from your printed report form(s) to file the online report so the details of your visit are recorded in the Move to Amend database.

Follow Up. One of the most important aspects of a lobby day is the follow up.

It will also be important to follow up about 2 weeks later if your legislator or their staff person did not give you a clear answer, or gave you a positive answer but then did not follow through with their commitment. Whether this is done by phone or email, or even another in person visit, the staffer and legislator will know you are serious if you follow up. Always be friendly and professional, and offer to provide additional information if it will help them to make a decision.

Lobby Packet

We recommend you email copies of these documents to the office in advance of the meeting:

• We the People Amendment Language
• Link to List of 117th Congress Co-Sponsors
• Read the Dear Colleague Letter from Lead Sponsor Pramila Jayapal: CLICK HERE!
• The We the People Amendment: The Constitutional Amendment to Counter Political Corruption and the Corporate Hijacking of the Constitution - April 2023 updated "white paper"
• Side-by-Side Comparison: Move to Amend's We The People Amendment, (HJR 54) and the Democracy for All Amendment (HJR 13)
• Why Non Profit Corporations Do Not Need (or Have) Constitutional Rights
• Ending “Corporate Personhood” is a Conservative Issue 
• Why Conservatives Support the We the People Amendment
• Why we need the We the People Amendment - 4 1/2 min video narrated by Peter Coyote
• List of Move to Amend Petition Signers in Congressional District (This information can be provided by MTA National by request if we have at least a week notice, preferably 2-3)

Additional Resources

Citizen Lobbying Resources

• Lobbying information in Move to Amend's Take Action Toolkit

Background Resources

• Move to Amend Strategic Plan
• Timeline of Personhood Rights and Powers

Long before the reign of Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos, there was Jack Welch.

Welch, who headed up the General Electric Company from 1981 and 2001, is often thought of as the first celebrity CEO, a businessman who wowed investors and mingled with celebrities.

https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1101505691/1102447228

"[Welch's] face was on the cover of magazines all the time," New York Times correspondent David Gelles says. "He emerged as sort of this imperial executive and helped define what I think is still with us today in the form of a certain amount of CEO worship."

In his book, The Man Who Broke Capitalism, Gelles makes the case that Welch's ruthless cost-cutting and single-minded focus on quarterly earnings ultimately hurt both GE and American capitalism.

"Neutron Jack," as he became known, had a practice of ranking employees and automatically firing the bottom 10 percent every year; in Welch's first few years of leadership, he fired more than 100,000 people in a series of mass layoffs and factory closures.

"Up until this point, people who had a job at a company like GE or IBM basically figured that they had a job for life. But he explicitly said that this notion was going to be a thing of the past under his watch," Gelles says.

Many of the jobs that Welch cut were sent overseas: "We see the first great wave of labor, American manufacturing labor, going abroad, and thus begins the real beginning of serious outsourcing that would, of course, decimate America's manufacturing base," Gelles says.

Welch made aggressive deals, including the acquisition of NBC in 1986, with an eye toward expanding GE's influence. The moves initially buoyed the company's stock price; in Sept. 1993, GE became the most valuable company on the stock market.

But ultimately, Welch's leadership did not lead to long-term profits. He championed risky financial ventures and acquisitions, which his successor then continued. GE's focus on subprime mortgages and short-term lending would prove costly when the 2008 financial crisis hit. In 2021, GE's current chief executive announced that the company would separate itself into three smaller standalone companies: One focused on jet engines, one focused on medical devices, and one focused on power equipment.

"This is all that's left of Jack Welch's legacy," Gelles says. "Far from being the most valuable company on Earth and a conglomerate that spanned the world and all these different industries, GE is now going to be essentially chopped up into three different discrete pieces – and that's the end of the story."

Interview highlights

On GE's role in the American economy before Welch took over

As I dug into the history of GE, I found it hard to overstate not only the impact that GE still had in 1981 when Jack took over, but really its role in the history of American industry for the better part of the century before that. This was the company that brought us electric light bulbs, power plants, X-ray machines. This was the company that introduced everyday products like the toaster oven. They were behind the mass marketing of radio sets and televisions, dishwashers. The list just went on and on. ...

When you looked at their influence on industry and government beyond what we might find in our kitchens, they were no less influential there as well. It was GE that helped put men on the moon on the Apollo missions. You go back and look at those pictures and there are lines and lines of GE engineers working side-by-side with NASA engineers. And right up to the present day, the size of that company became, at one point, I think, representing something close to 1% of the American GDP. And there was a phrase, "As GE goes, so goes the American economy." ...

Big companies back then — and GE is a perfect example of this — were proud of the way that they distributed their profits widely with employees, with their supply chains, and even with the government. It was a 1953 annual report by GE that I cite in the book, where they brag about how much they're paying in salaries to their workers and how much they're paying in taxes to the government. I don't need to tell you that that's a whole lot different than the way many companies operate today.

On Welch's background

He was impulsive, somewhat aggressive, restless, ambitious, impatient. He was raised primarily by his mother, who was a devout Catholic. One amazing anecdote I found was that she taught him to gamble at an early age, making him wager his own money to learn, in a visceral sense, what it meant to win and lose. But he was also deeply involved in the faith. He was an altar boy.

There were flashes of a temper from an early age. There's an anecdote ... where he talks about caddying at a local golf course. And the man he was caddying for asked him to go fetch a ball that had gone in the water. And instead, he throws the man's golf clubs in the water and storms off the course. So you see flashes of a temper. And that continues right on into his early days at GE, when, as a young associate, his first year at the company, he decides to quit because he learns that his colleagues got the same raise that he did and he thought he was doing better. So he said he would quit the company, and it was only after his superior promised to give him an even bigger raise that he agreed to stay.

On Welch's practice of ranking employees and firing the bottom 10%

He had a euphemistic name for this practice. He called it the "vitality curve," but it was known internally and more broadly in the public as stack ranking or even more sharply "rank and yank." And the idea is this: Managers, he said, needed to rank their employees. 20% get A grade, 70% get a B grade, and 10% get a C grade. And if you're in that 10%, you're out of the company.

He did that for 20 years inside GE, which led to thousands and thousands of layoffs. And it became, because he was so influential, dogma in corporate America. When Steve Ballmer took over Microsoft, he implemented stack ranking and it led to great turmoil in the ranks of Microsoft. And even more recently, Adam Neumann, the founder of WeWork, was using stack ranking as WeWork was growing so quickly, even though that company had billions and billions of dollars in funding, he saw the need to fire 10% of its workers every single year because Jack did it.

On Welch's unflattering nickname "Neutron Jack"

He hated the "Neutron Jack" name, even though he could never shake it. Even when he died in 2020, President Trump gave him a tweet. He said "There was no corporate leader like Neutron Jack," so that label stuck with him for the duration of his life. What was so remarkable, though, is that despite the negative press he got in those early years, he was able to continue his work because the GE board, and ultimately Wall Street and ultimately the rest of corporate America, saw that what he was doing was, for better or worse, working in the short-term. These strategies he was employing were indeed ticking up short-term profits. All of a sudden, other CEOs saw that, Hey, yes, if we rapidly wind down the cost of our labor, we could potentially see a meaningful increase in earnings per share for the next quarter and Wall Street sure liked that. And so there was this incentive system that encouraged other CEOs to start following his lead. And what's so remarkable is that even after these first years of pretty withering press, he's able to survive and ultimately become revered as the absolute model CEO, to the point that Fortune magazine at the end of his career, calls him "the manager of the century."

On Welch's impact on GE employees

During his time at GE, many GE workers benefited those men and women at the company who were invested in GE stock, they got to see their fortunes rise along with Welch's and the company's. But again, it depends on the time horizon we're looking at. If we're looking at just the years he was running the company and just what he did and who benefited at that point, you can make a case that, sure, he was good for at least the GE workers who didn't get fired under rank and yank or under his downsizing or offshoring or outsourcing.

But fast forward and look at what happens to these pensioners. Look what happens to the men and women holding GE stock as it plummets in the years following his departure. Because when he leaves, all of these flaws are fundamentally exposed and Wall Street starts seeing through the charade. So his reputation among workers was a complex one. I think for some GE workers, they enjoyed the benefits. But even in the '90s, when Jack was riding high, it was becoming commonly understood among organized labor, among union leaders, that Jack had led a charge in the early '80s that was resonating with them still and has ultimately helped erode union membership in this country to record low levels today.

On General Electric today

From being the most valuable company on Earth, GE fell to the point of essential irrelevance in the American economy. In 2018, with all of Welch's bad decisions catching up with the company, GE was removed from the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the bluest of blue chip indexes and a real bellwether of the American economy. GE had been one of the very first companies included in the index, and it was ultimately the last of that original group to be removed, but its departure from the Dow was this real symbolic moment that ultimately set the stage for news that happened just last year, which was the fact that GE is finally getting broken up once and for all.

Sam Briger and Joel Wolfram produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Natalie Escobar adapted it for the web.

https://www.npr.org/2022/06/01/1101505691/short-term-profits-and-long-term-consequences-did-jack-welch-break-capitalism