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We invite you to engage us in this idea...Giant corporations govern, even though they are mentioned nowhere in our Constitution or Bill of Rights. So when corporations govern, democracy is nowhere to be found. There is something else: when people live in a culture defined by corporate values, common sense evaporates. We stop trusting our own eyes, ears, and feelings. Our minds become colonized.POCLAD invites you to work with us to change this. Let's start with what you and we have learned. Hundreds of small, low-budget groups have stopped corporations from poisoning a river, clear-cutting a forest, breaking a law, busting a union, carrying propaganda into a school. This is extremely important. Valiant and persistent organizing has bettered the daily lives of millions, instilled confidence and self-respect, and transformed communities. But when the joy of victory fades, imperial corporations remain. Slowed in one place, they pop up in another. They're in our schools, town halls, statehouses, and Congress. They block sane, logical transitions in food, energy, transportation, healthcare, finance, forestry, and manufacturing. They fund think tanks and universities to frame public debate. They buy obedience and define society's values. They also instruct and control the government. It's nothing personal, of course. But when they control our government-officials, judges, police, and the military all paid with our money-they make us into colonized subjects all over again. The United States got rid of kings long ago. It's supposed to be "We the People" now, or so we thought. In the 1990s, we began to research and write about corporate, legal, and people's movement history. We formed POCLAD in 1994 and since then held over 200 "Rethinking the Corporation, Rethinking Democracy" meetings. Among other things, we realized that in our prior work we had limited our goals and generally restricted our efforts to regulatory and administrative arenas. Yet corporations never limited their designs and actions to anything. We learned that past movements for democracy refused to let courts and legislatures define corporations as beyond the authority of the sovereign people. POCLAD is not building a big national membership operation. We are 11 activists working with individuals and existing groups to launch democratic insurgencies that put corporations once again subordinate to "We the People." We are looking for people experienced in stopping corporate harms who want to rethink organizing strategies, exercise democratic authority at the local level, and strip fundamental powers-such as free speech and due process-from corporations. POCLAD continues to develop vital research and analysis for the years ahead: reading lists, pamphlets on critical issues, a twice-yearly publication By What Authority an anthology on corporations and democracy, videos, powerpoint presentations, and workshops on strategic engagement. We help organizers challenge the mass production and mass marketing of law and culture by artificial entities called corporations. Help us contest the authority of corporations to govern! Call. Fax. Write. Email.
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