Historian Richard Grossman speaks at Antioch Nationaly known writer, lecturer and historian Richard Grossman on WYSO Weekend talks about the relation between corporate rights and a community
Richard Grossman on WYSO Weekend
Project Democracy Ohio welcomes national activist, writer, lecturer, and legal historian, Richard Grossman, to Yellow Springs. He will talk about the parallels between the slave system of 150 years ago and today's corporate system. The talk is open to the public, and will be held at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, McGregor Hall in room 113.
The parallels are uncanny: Laws reaching back over 150 years have enabled corporations to wield power over people's and communities' rights. Like the slave system in which human beings were considered property under the law, corporate property not only has more rights than do natural persons—but corporations are also considered persons under the law! Why should corporations have Bill of Rights protections?
How does this affect our organizing? What are the connections between corporate rights and a community majority's lack of rights to stop a factory farm or a waste incinerator? When the state legislature passes a bill that further strips local power on behalf of agribusiness, whom is the legislature enabling with rights? Certainly not the majority in the community—whose rights are denied.
Consider Ohio's ranking in recent pollution indices: Ten Ohio counties rank among the nation's worst 100 in toxic chemical releases; five are among the top 25 in longterm particle pollution; and 3 Ohio cities are in the top 25 ozone polluters. Maybe it's time to rethink the strategy and examine how it is that corporations legally pollute. Ohio has waste incinerators, landfills, factory farms, development sprawl, coal mining, and tire burning—all in the name of "efficiency" for the sake of constant growth. How much longer can we waste our time at zoning and regulatory hearings to be told these corporate assaults are legal?
Before becoming an activist, Richard Grossman served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Philippines in the 1960s. Over the next 20 years, he worked in multiple states with anti-poverty, educational, environmental, labor, community and other civic groups, including Environmentalists For Full Employment (EFFE) in Washington, D.C. In the late 1980s, he helped create "Stop The Poisoning" Schools at the Highlander Center in Tennessee, to serve communities invaded by corporate and government toxic chemicals.
Richard co-authored the best selling pamphlet "Taking Care of Business: Citizenship and the Charter of Incorporation" in 1993. He co-authored the books Energy, Jobs & the Economy (1978); Fear at Work: Job Blackmail, Labor & the Environment (1982); and Defying Corporations, Defining Democracy: A book of History and Strategy (2001).
In 1995 Richard began working closely with Pennsylvania attorney Thomas Linzey, and in 2003 they co-founded the Daniel Pennock Democracy School. In early 2006 Richard joined the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, co-founded by Thomas in 1994. The Defense Fund is a nonprofit organization that assists communities who are fed up with corporations dictating their future and trumping their rights. Together, Richard and Thomas have taught a long-overdue approach to organizing through the Democracy School.
Project Democracy Ohio is a nonprofit organization co-founded by Eme Lybarger and Kat Walter to assist with rights-based organizing to challenge corporate control in people's communities. The organization is bringing in Richard to help teach the first Democracy School at Antioch College. The weekend seminar includes U.S. history not taught in school—about law, the Constitution, the founders, and people's struggles for rights and justice—as well as current-day organizing by Pennsylvanians who see the need to challenge corporate minorities who wield constitutional rights in their communities.
The School will take place from December 1st through December 3rd. Richard will also speak to Antioch College's freshman class on Peace Studies and the Environment.
Free and open to the public: Antioch College, McGregor Hall, Room 113 at 7:00 pm
WYSO Weekend - Sunday Mornings at 10:30 on WYSO
