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At the Summit:
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Addressing Corporate Power and Accountability
Green Party 2004 Presidential Candidate David Cobb
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by Kate Truka
"Did the abolitionists seek regulations in hope for a kinder, gentler slavery? Did American revolutionaries plead with the King for more socially responsible colonial rule?" asked David Cobb in Saturday morning's Addressing Corporate Power and Accountability panel. The palpable energy of Cobb's presentation and audience response indicates that members of the Sierra Club are eager to create a movement to end corporate rule. According to Cobb, who was the Green Party 2004 Presidential Candidate and who has devoted his legal career to creating real democracy by challenging illegitimate corporate power, we can create a rights-based environmental movement by exercising our moral and spiritual authority to assert our fundamental right to environmental sustainability. The Constitution is on our side. We the people must reassert our right to govern and create sustainable systems, despite the unelected corporate officials who currently shape public policy through bought-and-sold politicians. The Constitution is used to allow property or corporate wealth, to assert rights such as the right to assert itself into local elections in communities across the land. This was the case in Humboldt County where Cobb and his community are working on an ordinance to ban non-local corporations from making political contributions to local elections. http://www.votelocalcontrol.org. An audience member volunteered Monsanto as a corporation that Sierra Clubbers are fighting, and Cobb said, "Take me to the legal corporate person named Monsanto so I can reason with that person," which is difficult because the CEO, the Board of Directors and the shareholders all enjoy limited liability. "The corporation is property. The state had to create the corporation and at one time the corporation was subordinate and accountable to the state, to the people," Cobb explained. And if the Sierra Club so chooses to join the movement, corporations could once again be held accountable to people and communities. "I'm already animated," said an audience member name John, who is the president of the Giraffe Project (as in stick out your neck for the common good). "I've been put on the government's no-fly list. If corporations are people, why don’t we put them on the no-fly list?" Responding to Cobb's answer that under law a corporation is a person when it wants to be and not when it doesn't, John said, "This angle is going to make our work much more powerful." Cobb encouraged all Sierra Clubbers to reframe their campaigns using this analysis. "We will know we have succeeded when the rights of nature and human beings are no longer trumped by property rights in court," Cobb said. Sabine Bendenoun, a Corporate Sustainability consultant from the audience really appreciated how Cobb engendered a fresh view of our legal system. "He gave us an interesting framework from which to work, which can be more valuable than giving facts. A new perspective like this is a valuable asset." Drusha Mayhue from the Sierra Club’s Confronting Corporate Power Task Force moderated the session, and Ruth Caplan, head of the Club’s Corporate Accountability Committee, wrapped it up by saying, "There’s an emphasis on positive solutions and a new way of thinking. This is both. We are saying that we believe in the U.S. Constitution, the rights of the people." "At the end of the day," Cobb concluded, "it’s about educating, agitating, and organizing, just like every other social movement in our history." -- 09/10/2005 Sat |
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