A Draft of the Declaration

This was put together by the Concerned Citizens Coalition to organize the initial suggested contents of the Petition, synthesize points made by Michael Moore and others that may not have been included, and help develop the draft of the petition to a point where it may be presented to the general public.

We'd ultimately like to see a revised version of this draft go up on the 99% Declaration site or elsewhere with a table of contents that makes it easily navigable, a polling feature that allows us to get a general feeling of the support for each piece of the contents, and links to the forum or something where we can organize suggestions to improve the petition.

The draft document is currently available here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ohC16Tf61daFlobimxbtyZgf4czCMdSVWfjNo3scpoo/edit

The link, as I see it, is just the intro and the table of contents. If there's more to this document, it does not appear at this link. If there's more, problem could be at my end.

Try giving it a bit longer to load...the full thing is like 16 pages with language, commentary and a summary of changes for each point.

If that still doesn't work, pm me with your email address and I'll send it to you.

OK, thanks.

Regarding the following paragraph:

"Corporations are not human beings. They are entities created by one or more human beings, generally with the purpose of making a profit for their stakeholders. They do not have a conscience, and cannot be said to have a set of morals the same way humans do. They cannot be governed in the same manner, as justice cannot be acted upon them in the same manner. Therefore, they should not be viewed the same way under the law."

I propose the following revisions:

"Corporations are not human beings. They are entities chartered by the State to allow one or more human beings (shareholders) to concentrate their wealth and economic power while relieving those shareholders of personal responsibility in excess of their investment. This limited liability is a fundamental distortion of the Free Market of common law, wherein an individual's entire net worth is at risk for debts incurred or damages caused either by his individual action or in partnership with others. Limited liability allows corporate shareholders to privatize profits while socializing risks and damages caused by their enterprise. It makes feasible ever increasing excesses of concentrated economic power, thus limiting the choices available to individuals as either employees or customers. Because shareholders have no personal responsibility, corporations do not have a conscience, and cannot be said to have a set of morals the same way humans do. They cannot be governed in the same manner, as justice cannot be acted upon them in the same manner. Therefore, they should not be viewed the same way under the law.

"Since the State creates limited liability corporations, it has the right to abolish them. They therefore have no rights the state is obligated to uphold. Furthermore, unless the State takes action to mitigate the distortions caused by corporate limited liability, the market is severely distorted so as to transfer wealth from the 99% to the 1%. This is an invisible tax on the 99% for the benefit of the 1%. The State must act to neutralize these distortions through stringent corporate regulation and laws that equalize the power relationships between employees, customers and corporations."

I think the above points will provoke many libertarians and traditional conservatives in the 99% to re-evaluate the nature of the "free market" and re-assess the role government can and should morally play in "leveling the playing field." I think it would result in greater support for 99% and OWS among those groups.

Whether these points are made in an introduction or in the section on Citizens United makes little difference. However, I do think the wholesale slaughter of the original section 1 on the Corporate State in moving it to a much abbreviated Introduction is a huge mistake. The Corporate State has been the underlying cause of most of our problems, even before the Citizens United decision. It does deserve much more focus, either in an expanded introduction or the lead item.