Why We Must Work Together To Pass The OCCUPIED Amendment

Corporations are not people and they do not belong in our elections.

In recent months, Americans across the nation have demonstrated, protested, and occupied cities across the nation. But for far longer, corporations have occupied Washington and our state capitals. We can achieve lasting change by working together to pass the OCCUPIED Amendment. It is time to give our government back to the people.

The OCCUPIED Amendment will end corporate influence in our elections by:
Overturning Citizens United and outright banning the ability of corporations to use their profits to influence our elections.

Making clear that corporations, as well as entities formed to represent corporations — are not real, living people with rights protected by our Constitution. They are entities established under our laws and thus subject to our laws.

Reasserting the authority of Congress and the States to crack down on anonymous third party groups flooding our elections with malicious attack ads and to limit campaign contributions and expenditures by individuals, candidates, and all types of private entities.

Read More about H. J. Res 90:

Ten Reasons to Impeach George Bush and Dick Cheney

I ask Congress to impeach President Bush and Vice President Cheney for the following reasons:

1. Violating the United Nations Charter by launching an illegal "War of Aggression" against Iraq without cause, using fraud to sell the war to Congress and the public, misusing government funds to begin bombing without Congressional authorization, and subjecting our military personnel to unnecessary harm, debilitating injuries, and deaths.

2. Violating U.S. and international law by authorizing the torture of thousands of captives, resulting in dozens of deaths, and keeping prisoners hidden from the International Committee of the Red Cross.

3. Violating the Constitution by arbitrarily detaining Americans, legal residents, and non-Americans, without due process, without charge, and without access to counsel.

4. Violating the Geneva Conventions by targeting civilians, journalists, hospitals, and ambulances, and using illegal weapons, including white phosphorous, depleted uranium, and a new type of napalm.

5. Violating U.S. law and the Constitution through widespread wiretapping of the phone calls and emails of Americans without a warrant.

6. Violating the Constitution by using "signing statements" to defy hundreds of laws passed by Congress.

7. Violating U.S. and state law by obstructing honest elections in 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006.

8. Violating U.S. law by using paid propaganda and disinformation, selectively and misleadingly leaking classified information, and exposing the identity of a covert CIA operative working on sensitive WMD proliferation for political retribution.

9. Subverting the Constitution and abusing Presidential power by asserting a "Unitary Executive Theory" giving unlimited powers to the President, by obstructing efforts by Congress and the Courts to review and restrict Presidential actions, and by promoting and signing legislation negating the Bill of Rights and the Writ of Habeas Corpus.

10. Gross negligence in failing to assist New Orleans residents after Hurricane Katrina, in ignoring urgent warnings of an Al Qaeda attack prior to Sept. 11, 2001, and in increasing air pollution causing global warming.

Sign the petition>> Peoples Email Network

WELCOME HOME VIETNAM VETERANS DAY--H. RES. 189--MARCH 30, 2008

Letter from a Vietnam Vet
>>Official website - http://www.whvvd.org/
Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2007 11:11:12 EDT

My name is José G. Ramos, I am the Vietnam Veteran who began the campaign in 2000 to have a national day of recognition for the Vietnam Veterans. In 2004, my team and I rode our bicycles from Whittier, CA to Washington DC to ask Congress and the Senate for thier support. Congresswoman Linda T. Sanchez of Norwalk, CA and Senator Boxer also from CA. both introduced their own personal bill to each of the Houses.

These bills ask the President, to designate March 30 of every year as the official "Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day." now on June 25, 2007 congress unanimously passed H.Res. 189 and they are now preparing to send the bill to the President's desk for a final signature to approve the resolution. What we have done in anticipation of that bill being sent to the president, is we have printed up 5,000 postcards which we are now mailing to folks all across the country where they are having them signed by everyone they know and any stranger in the street who cares.

The last time we did a postcard campaign in 2004, we delivered over 10,000 postcards to DC on our bicycles. When congress is ready to send their bill/letter to the President, we will then send all the postcards we have had signed to the President's office in support of the Congressional letters. I want to pass on this information and give you an update, because, now that congress has taken the matter to the President, I feel it will not be long before the President sees the good in what we are trying to accomplish and signs our bill. His signature will make March 30, 2008 the first official welcome home day. But what I would like to ask from all of you is that you help me out with my write in campaign to the president.

I have the postcards all printed up, all they need is a signature and a 26 cent stamp. I will be glad to send anyone as many postcards as they think they might need or be able to have their friends and family sign. This campaign is going to become a reality. But we really need your help and the help of all of America. It is time to fix the old wrong and together we can do it. I sure hope ya'll can help us out with this by posting it on your web site, telling your friends, family and neighbors.

Perhaps you will share it with your local newspaper, radio station, etc?
Thank you all and may God bless.

CONTACT ME AT >WHVVD@AOL.COM
José G. Ramos, founder/team coordinator

>>Official website - http://www.whvvd.org/

Why there was no exit plan for Iraq - Editorial

San Francisco Chronicle
Lewis Seiler, Dan Hamburg
Monday, April 30, 2007

There are people in Washington ... who never intend to withdraw military forces from Iraq and they're looking for 10, 20, 50 years in the future ... the reason that we went into Iraq was to establish a permanent military base in the Gulf region, and I have never heard any of our leaders say that they would commit themselves to the Iraqi people that 10 years from now there will be no military bases of the United States in Iraq.

-- former President Jimmy Carter, Feb. 3, 2006

For all the talk about timetables and benchmarks, one might think that the United States will end the military occupation of Iraq within the lifetimes of the readers of this opinion editorial. Think again.

There is to be no withdrawal from Iraq, just as there has been no withdrawal from hundreds of places around the world that are outposts of the American empire. As UC San Diego professor emeritus Chalmers Johnson put it, "One of the reasons we had no exit plan from Iraq is that we didn't intend to leave."

The United States maintains 737 military bases in 130 countries across the globe. They exist for the purpose of defending the economic interests of the United States, what is euphemistically called "national security." In order to secure favorable access to Iraq's vast reserves of light crude, the United States is spending billions on the construction of at least five large permanent military bases throughout that country.

A new Iraq oil law, largely written by the Coalition Provisional Authority, is planned for ratification by June. This law cedes control of Iraq's oil to western powers for 30 years . There is major opposition to the proposed law within Iraq, especially among the country's five trade union federations that represent hundreds of thousands of oil workers. The United States is working hard to surmount this opposition by appealing directly to the al-Maliki government in Iraq.

The attack upon, and subsequent occupation of, Iraq can be seen as a direct result of the 2001 National Energy Policy Development Group (better known as vice president Cheney's energy task force) that was comprised largely of oil and energy company executives. This task force -- the proceedings of which have been kept secret by the administration on the grounds of "executive privilege" -- recommended that the U.S. government support initiatives in Middle Eastern countries "to open up areas of their energy sector to foreign investment." As Antonio Juhasz, an analyst with Oil Change International wrote last month in the New York Times, "One invasion and a great deal of political engineering by the Bush administration later, this is exactly what the proposed Iraq oil law would achieve."

The people of the United States have indicated, in the national election last November and in countless polls, that they no longer support the Bush administration's war. The Scooter Libby trial revealed that top administration officials, including the vice president, "cherry-picked" and distorted intelligence in order to sell a "pre-emptive" war to a spooked public. The squandering of hundreds of billions of dollars, some billions of which, according to Seymour Hersh writing in the New Yorker, is being siphoned into "black-ops" programs being run out of Cheney's office (a stunning redux of Iran-Contra carried out by many of the same actors), has also strained the patience and credulity of the American people.

Another betrayal is the "contracting out" of "war-related activities" to corporations such as Halliburton, Bechtel, Chemonics and Blackwater. Halliburton, Vice President Cheney's previous employer, calls itself an "energy services company" but has tentacles reaching into nearly every aspect of the war (originally dubbed Operation Iraqi Liberation until some bright bulb among the Bushies realized that "OIL" might not be the best handle for this venture). Halliburton has also profited handsomely from no-bid government contracts awarded in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the construction at the national embarrassment known as "Gitmo," and most recently, from the fiasco at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C.

Unfortunately, all this corruption, mayhem and death are good for some (or it wouldn't go on).

The U.S. military budget, larger than the military budgets of the rest of the world's nations combined, continues skyward, even without all the "supplementals" passed regularly by Congress to fight the "war on terror."

The question we must ask as citizens is this: Is the United States a democratic republic or an empire? History demonstrates that it's not possible to be both.

Lewis Seiler is president of Voice of the Environment. Dan Hamburg, a former U.S. representative, is executive director.

This article appeared on page B - 7 of the San Francisco Chronicle