Adbusters July 4th Event

The American Revolution was an insurrection against the despotism of a King and the tyranny of a Corporation. This July 4th, spend some time reflecting on the real origins of the American Revolution with Adbusters Contributing Editor Micah White. Micah will speak about the history of corporations and the struggle to regain the right of citizens to revoke the charters of pathological businesses. Before heading to this year’s fireworks, join us at the Long Haul Infoshop in Berkeley for an evening of engaging discussion on the future of the anti-corporate movement in America.

Saturday, July 4th at 6pm

The Long Haul Infoshop
3124 Shattuck Ave.
Berkeley CA 94705

Press Contact:
Micah White
micah [at] adbusters.org
http://www.micahmwhite.com

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More Information

In the coming month, citizens of the United States of America will commemorate an act that sparked seven years of bloody insurrection in which an oppressed people defeated the British Empire. Each year on July 4th, with exploding fireworks and booming festival, we remember the radically democratic gesture made by our Founding Fathers whose signatures on the Declaration of Independence in 1776 promise us the freedoms we desire today. Their words are clear: "whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive [to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness], it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it." This year, two hundred and thirty-three years since Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin chose rebellion over subjugation, we stand at a deciding moment similar to that faced by our Founding Fathers.

In signing the Declaration of Independence, the Founding Fathers were declaring freedom not only from the dictates of the British King and Parliament but also from the tyranny of British corporations. It was the anti-corporate protests of sixty Bostonian patriots who dumped hundreds of chests of tea into the harbor – an act now known as the Boston Tea Party of 1773 – that led to Britain’s passage of the so-called Intolerable Acts. These laws called for the closure of the Boston harbor until the East India Company was repaid for their lost tea, along with other measures meant to stop the burgeoning anti-corporate movement. In the end, the Intolerable Acts had the unintended consequence of precipitating the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution. And, for nearly a hundred years after these historic events, early Americans continued to treat corporations with distrust, keeping them under tight control, limiting their powers and retaining the right to revoke their charters when needed.

But, after the American Civil War, the scales of power began to once again tip in favor of the corporation who, after years of lobbying and court cases, won recognition by the American Supreme Court in 1886 for the claim that a corporation should be considered a "natural person" and have the same unalienable, constitutional rights as you or I. Since that fateful case, corporations have enjoyed protections under the 14th Amendment that were originally intended to end slavery. Corporations now have a right to free speech, the ability to own property, the right to lobby government officials and protections against self-incrimination. The U.S. Constitution has been perverted to protect the very entities that our forefathers waged a guerilla war to defeat.

A corporation is not a person. It is an abstraction, an organizational structure that has no morality, feels no remorse and has no sense for the mystery of existence. The corporation has become too powerful, able to commit grievous crimes against our Earth with little fear of recourse. CEOs may be given a slap on the wrist but the corporate structure itself, the right of the corporation to continue to exist, is never challenged. Enslaved to consumerism by corporations whose power exceeds that of civil society, we need a contemporary insurrection – a second American Revolution – that finishes the anti-corporate job our forefathers began.

Please join Adbusters Contributing Editor Micah White for an evening of engaging discussion on the future of the anti-corporate movement in America.

Saturday, July 4th at 6pm

The Long Haul Infoshop
3124 Shattuck Ave.
Berkeley CA 94705