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Recently, I was among some 1,500 uninvited “guests” who descended on an exclusive closed-door, political retreat held at a posh resort. How rude of us riff-raff to intrude!
However, America’s always-fragile democracy often requires confrontational rudeness. This secretive gathering of the rich was organized by the now-infamous, multibillionaire Koch brothers, bringing together their shadowy network of far-right-wing moneyed elites and political operatives. For years, the Kochs have been working behind dozens of political front groups to intrude on America’s democracy with their own schemes to establish a corporate plutocracy. Now, that’s truly rude! So we decided to knock on the door of their resort hideaway and say, “We see you.”
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But our purpose was not only to expose the Koch’s cabal of billionaires, but also to focus media and public attention on the need to repeal The Supreme Court edict in last year’s Citizen United case. the Supremes ruled that a corporation is a “person” entitled to wield greater political power than us actual, human-being-type persons.
To do this, we need to pass a Constitutional amendment that explicitly makes an obvious point: To be a person, you have to have a navel. Passing any amendment to our nation’s basic governing document is difficult, but it can and must be done if America is even to pretend to be a government of and by the people.
The good news is that Americans are up for it. A nationwide poll in January found that four out of five of our people support the passage of just such an amendment – including 68 percent of Republicans.
Two hundred and thirty-six years ago Paul Revere supposedly rallied the people’s resistance to democratic repression with the cry” “The British are coming!” Today, the rallying cry is, “The Kochs are coming.” To join the resistance, go to www.freespeechforpeople.org.