Written by James Kenworthy   

Corporations (legal entities or artificial persons) have behaved in such an atrocious and unreasonable manner that it is now necessary to enumerate their shortcomings. Their sole reason for existence is to make money and they attempt to foist this unwholesome way of life upon actual persons who draw breath and have spirit. By centralizing power and influence, corporations have become destructive of the rights of living persons. Furthermore, they continue to abuse the rights of living persons and continue to gather power. They influence all branches of government, which were originally established to promote the common good. We implore actual persons to join the process to alter the system that allows nonliving entities to abuse and encroach upon the rights of living beings; thus we present the following list.

They have lobbied representatives of the people and have spent billions of dollars to pass unjust laws and to block the passage of just laws.

They have influenced elections by supplying such amounts of money that candidates are unable to resist.

They have deprived parents of peace of mind by influencing (stalking) their children and robbing said children of their childhood.

They have influenced the Supreme Court to declare that the “corporate entity” is a person under the 14th amendment. (Santa Clara County versus the Southern Pacific Railroad 1886.) And, they have influenced the Supreme Court to declare that multinational corporations may spend money to influence national elections. (Citizens United versus Federal Election Commission 1-21-2010.)

Likewise, they have persuaded the Supreme Court to declare that money equals free speech, thus depriving individuals–of–average–means of that freedom. (First National Bank versus Bellotti 1978.)

They have lied to the public and cheated all of us, causing cycles of inflation and deflation, thereby depriving the general public of any chance of real economic gain, while the CEOs accrue untold riches.

They have caused over–consumption by their lies and have strewn their waste products into the environment, degrading our earth and our health, while insisting that the public pay the costs of cleaning up their waste products.

They have twisted our public educational system into one that favors materialistic, conformist, and selfish attitudes, while discouraging environmental conservation, creativity, social cooperation, and even a social conscience.

They own the media and use those means of communication to filter and distort the news to such an extent that it has very little meaningful content and may be characterized as propaganda. In the process, they twist the English language, mislabeling their deceitful deeds as laudable accomplishments.

In sum, they have marginalized citizen participation in government, declared economic war on the middle class, eroded democracy by their overwhelming power, influence, and greed, and they have caused our culture to become shallow, narrow in scope, and questionable in meaning.

We take full responsibility for having been asleep, but now that we are awake, we declare that in light of the above offenses by various corporations, these many citizens of the United States pledge to resist corporate power and influence by any means possible, including, but not limited to, rejecting the ideas that corporations are persons and that money is free speech. Further, we pledge to ignore corporate messages, to shelter our children from corporate influence, to spend our money only with responsible businesses, and to reject the emptiness of the materialistic lifestyle. Moreover, we pledge to pass on this DECLARATION, to actively challenge corporate influence in any way possible, and to inform other citizens of new and creative methods of doing so.