Cindy Chavez said that we probably wouldn't prevail this year, but it is vital that we participate in the struggle, and hopefully we will win in the end.

Then they role played a few sides of the issue, to dramatize it. First was a plutocrat who explained that now that money is speech, he can spend enough to control all of the important aspects of our economy.

        

The woman told her story. She had been employed at Wal*Mart, but had been fired for making trouble. She had sued them for discrimination, but it hadn't gone well. The net result was a supreme court ruling that corporations can get rid of trouble makers or something like that.

The next guy had been a hard working assembly line worker until his hand had been chopped off by a factory machine. His employer had laid him off after that because he couldn't work. Since then his unemployment had run out. Now he's screwed.

     

The guys from Debug said they were honored to be with us, and hang around for the end, because there was going to be "a kick butt rapper"!

     

           

Ann gave a speech about the history of corporate personhood that explained the whole story in seven minutes. Click (fill in the blank) to see it.

(Unknown speaker) said that we need the whole of the USA on the same page to make progress on this issue. We are not naive enough to think we can solve it by ourselves.

Sam Licardo, who represents the area on San Jose's City Council, reminded us that Corporate Personhood was not the only impact San Jose has had on the political system. San Jose was where Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers organized fruit pickers for the first time. San Jose was the first major city in the USA to elect a woman Mayor. San Jose was the first major city in the USA to elect a Japanese-American Mayor. San Jose was the home town of the sprinters whose single gesture of solidarity from the awards stand during the 1968 Olympics did more to put the peace movement on the front page of the newspapers than anything else that early in the Vietnam War. He called on us to make a difference on the corporate personhood issue to.

        

Pat asked everybody that could do anything to help to visit SCC-MTA.ORG and click on "let us know you're in" to become a volunteer. That includes you dear reader! Just click the sign above or here.

        

Then the robo-corp role played the evils of a few of the worst corporations.

Pfizer is doing all kinds of things to extend their intellectual property rights so they can continue to milk people that need drugs for excess profits.

Exxon-Mobile has a lot of human rights abuses to answer for. The company also has a huge carbon footprint and is responsible for quite a few oil spills.

     

Monsanto is filling supermarkets with foods based on genetically modified organisms, mainly by trapping farmers in situations where they are forced to grow those things. They are also the current owner of Xe, the mercenary company formerly known as Blackwater.

Lockheed-Martin is a huge military contractor, and invests a lot in lobbying Congress.

At this point the battery in my camera died, so I can't show you the rapper. Nor can I share the march we did down to City Hall. The crowd was big enough that we stretched out over a couple of blocks, marching three to six abreast on the wide sidewalks. There were more speeches at the end, sort of open mike time for the rest of us. Announcements of campaigns and upcoming events.

I told people that I was collecting signatures on this new oil severance tax initiative. At this point California is the only state without one. If it passes all the money goes to education, which could work out to a few billion dollars a year. When I passed the microphone back to the speaker there was a line of people that wanted to sign. It was a nice way to end the event.