Submitted by consciousvoices on Fri, 02/03/2012 - 1:59am
Bob Fitrakis is a journalist, attorney, and professor of political science at Columbus State Community College. He spoke with WCRS on Jan 20 at Occupy the Courts, a rally and protest against the US Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling on the second anniversary of the decision. Activists gathered said corporations are not people and money is not speech.
“ Many other democracies don’t have these problems. For example, you could require elected stakeholders, workers on every corporate board in America. Like Germany, we could require the larger ones---with more than 5,000 employees---- have half of their boards elected by their workers; and that if it’s a tie between their workers and the representatives of management, the workers get to break the tie.”
Fitrakis said corporate personhood is part of a broader issue.
“It’s the fact that our corporations are absolutely undemocratic. You got 12 people. Often these corporate directors are responsible only to a bottom line, not to the country, the community, or its workers.”
He calls for democratizing corporations.
“The first step is to say they are not people; they are legal fictions…Conservatives like to talk about states’ rights. But in the old days, you could pull a corporation’s charter if it was acting outside of what you chartered it to do.”
Fitrakis said in the past corporations existed for a period of time and then went out of business.
Submitted by consciousvoices on Fri, 12/02/2011 - 4:47pm
Evan speaks by phone with Marcia Johnson-Blanco of the Voting Rights Project on the topic of voter ID requirements and the disenfranchisement that can result as a consequence.
On the second half of the program, Evan speaks with Mike Breen of the Truman Nat'l Security Project regarding apparent compromise of U.S. citizens' rights by an anti-terrorism inclusion in the current Defense Authorization Bill.
Submitted by consciousvoices on Fri, 11/25/2011 - 3:11pm
Jason Box is an associate professor of geography and atmospheric sciences at the Ohio State University. He was part of a protest in front of the Columbus offices of Senator Rob Portman, one of six Republicans on the now defunct Super Committee.
“We stand here…calling for a reduction in oil subsidies. That connects with this issue of increasing reliance on fossil fuels at a time when that needs to decrease,” Box said.
He said environmental issues are appropriately part of Occupy.
“The Occupy Movement and environmentalism go together because these are both justice movements. It’s economic justice and environmental justice.”
Box agreed this and other industrial societies can not quit fossil fuels cold turkey, but he said subsidies and other investments should support moving toward cleaner, renewable energy sources.
“ I hear proponents for hydro-fracturing talking about the urgency to invest in that technology. But that’s a carbon-intensive technology and it does other damage to the environment. Where is the rhetoric coming from industry about the need to invest in clean energy ? It’s pretty obvious that we need wind, solar, and even biofuels. These are the technologies that deserve subsidies and investment,” Box said.
Box agreed energy security is a real concern. But he said politicians often talk about that issue as a way to call for promoting fossil fuels, without including cleaner, more renewable sources of energy.
