Corporations champion free expression. To understand the illegitimate authority by which our corporations govern, people need to talk about it. To challenge this authority effectively, activist groups need to debate different perspectives, goals and strategies from those we've been used to. Let's start with what we and you have learned. Thousands of groups know how to stop an incinerator, organize a union, block a timber harvest sale, decrease a toxic emission, orchestrate a referendum or initiative, enact new permitting or disclosure regulation.
People spend years getting regulatory agencies to lessen a single corporate harm.
We all know stories about small, low-budget groups stopping global corporations from siting a deadly factory, clearcutting a forest, ramrodding through a new law, busting a union, using deceptive advertising, carrying propaganda into a school. It has bettered the daily lives of millions, instilled confidence and self-respect, transformed whole communities, taught democracy. But when the joy of victory fades, imperial corporations remain. Slowed down in one place, they pop up in another. They are in everyone's yards front and back, in little leagues and scouting, in town halls, state houses and Congress.