SIGN AND SHARE THE NEVADA PETITION TO ABOLISH CORPORATE PERSONHOOD

On January 21, 2010, with its ruling in the infamous Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case, the U.S. Supreme Court gave rights to corporations that were once reserved for natural, human persons.

This dangerous and unthinkable ruling allows artificial entities, such as corporations and limited liability companies, to donate UNLIMITED funds to political campaigns as a form of Constitutionally-protected “free speech”. It sets the stage for the auctioning of our representatives to the highest bidder and is the most open and direct attack on America’s most prominent founding principle: Democracy.

It has now become necessary that we, the People of the State of Nevada, exercise our First Amendment rights and petition Nevada’s Congressional Representatives to dismantle the corporate political power that has usurped our governance. By signing this petition, we are sending a clear message that:

We, the People of the State of Nevada, reject the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United, and hereby instruct our elected representatives to enact resolutions that firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.

Amending the Constitution will take a tremendous amount of work from all corners of the nation. So far, New York City, Los Angeles, Albany, Portland, Boulder and many other cities have passed city council resolutions against corporate personhood. The state of Vermont introduced a measure that calls on Congress to create a constitutional amendment separating the rights of individuals from those of corporations. California is expected to be next.

The fight to reclaim our sovereign right to self-governance begins in our backyard. Together we can, and must, put an end to the corporate electioneering of OUR Representatives and build a more perfect union that serves the true will of the governed.

Nevada residents: sign this petition and share it with as many people as possible. It’s time our representatives in the Silver State address this issue once and for all.

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The Revolution Will Be Led By a 12-Year-Old Girl

In honor of International Women’s Day, watch the video below and share with your friends and family.

From Girleffect.org:

Why Girls?

There are 250 million adolescent girls living in poverty in the developing world. That’s a quarter of a billion girls aged 10-19 living on less than $2 USD a day – and a massive amount of potential to change the world.

When girls’ lives are limited, everyone loses. Families, communities and entire economies are all stunted when half their human potential is squandered. The world is missing out on a tremendous opportunity for change.

This is where the Girl Effect comes in – the power, promise, and potential of adolescent girls as the change agents to end global poverty.

Details for International Women’s Day

Thursday March 8, 2012
International Women’s Day 2012: Call to Action
A call to rise up and occupy Bank of America!

Join Code Pink, Occupy UNR, and Occupy Reno for International Women’s Day 2012 as we occupy Bank of America throughout the day.

• 9:30 AM: 710 South Meadows Parkway
• 12:00 PM: Virginia and Liberty St
• 4:00 PM: 5905 South Virginia Street

2:00-3:30 PM: In solidarity with Code Pink and International Women’s Day, Occupy UNR will be holding an event on the steps of the IGT/Knowledge Center at 2:00-3:30 PM. Merkin will be playing and there will be poetry readings!

Click image for flyers

March 8th Action for International Women’s Day 2012: Disrupt Bank of America!

Thursday March 8, 2012
International Women’s Day 2012: Call to Action

A call to rise up and occupy Bank of America!

This International Women’s Day, Women Occupy calls on women across the globe to rise up against the big banks that have caused the current economic crisis. On March 8th, WO calls on people across the globe to fight back against Bank of America and the patriarchal economic system it represents!!

In solidarity with Women Occupy, the sisters of Occupy Reno and the Sierra chapter of Code Pink will be disrupting business for Bank of America on March 8th across the Reno/Sparks area. This will be an all day event of activism, education and fun. The Code Pink Sierra Chapter Facebook page will be updated throughout the day as to our whereabouts and how you can support this action.

For more info about this event, please visit the March 8 event page.

CODEPINK is a women-initiated grassroots peace and social justice movement. The Sierra (and Tahoe) Chapter is a coalition of Californians and Nevadans working for peace and social justice. We are working to end U.S. funded wars and military and police occupations, to challenge militarism globally, and to redirect our resources into health care, education, green jobs and other life-affirming activities.

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From Naked Capitalism:
Bank of America to Impose Monthly Fees on Many “Basic” Checking Account Customers

“Bank of America has presumably woken up to the trend noted in some of Matt Stoller’s and our posts: that young people, burdened by high levels of student debt, aren’t buying real estate at anything remotely resembling historical levels in relationship to household formation. And ex finance, even those young people who are employed are less likely to be upwardly mobile than past generations. It might have helped if the banks had thought that through before they crashed the global economy.”  Continue reading…

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Occupy Reno’s Featured Guest Post:
The Silo-ization of America
by Bob Bennett

The Reno General Assembly on March 1 was an amazing gathering of occupiers and local leaders. Among those was mental health advocate, writer, and photographer Bob Bennett who spoke on the fragmented bureaucracy of a nation.

Read his piece here.

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REMINDER:

Homeless Outreach
Every Saturday at 5:00pm

Every Saturday at 5pm, the homeless outreach working group delivers and serves cooked meals to hundreds of locals without a home at the Community Assistance Center (335 Record Street). We encourage you to join us and help the ones who need it the most.You can also bring any of the following items to any Occupy Reno committee meetings:Requested food items: meat, potatoes, vegetables, bread, tomato sauce, spaghetti noodles, chicken and beef broth…Other requested items: toiletries (travel size), socks, clothing…
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Featured Guest Post: The Silo-ization of America

THE SILO-IZATION OF AMERICA
By Bob Bennett

Those of you who watched the film Inside Job on campus last week realize that half the farms in America could be fertilized with what comes out of the mouths of the Wall Street profiteers who created our current economic problems.  But even this financial mess is merely a consequence of a greater problem – we have increasingly become a silo society.   In a silo society people only speak to those who agree with them.  They ridicule and demonize all who disagree with them.  Think of the GOP for a moment.  Now think of the DEMS.  Liberals match conservatives in this silo-ization of America.  Little to no cross pollination occurs, and we become more inbred.  A slow death occurs as we bicker and complain about the littlest of things.

In large part this silo-ization of America has grown due to the bureaucratization of America.   Bureaucracies, like all living organisms seek to grow, and like the Borg they often resemble, assimilation is their goal.  Dissent is not permitted.  You must go along to get along.  Questioning of the boss is not permitted in most bureaucracies.  They can’t change anything anyway; they are just clogs in the machine.  Someone else makes all the rules.  A governmental body, a corporate hierarchy – a someone else, someone with little or oversight and less interested in honest feedback, makes the rules.  More growth means more power; and power is all that is important.  Serving the people isn’t a goal of a bureaucracy, serving the bureaucracy is the goal.

An excerpt from People of the Lie; The Hope for Healing Human Evil by M. Scott Peck, MD (pg. 218):  “Whenever the roles of individuals within a group become specialized, it becomes both possible and easy for the individual to pass the moral buck to some other part of the group. In this way, not only does the individual forsake his conscience but the conscience of the group as a whole can become so fragmented and diluted as to be nonexistent… The plain fact of the matter is that any group will remain inevitably potentially conscienceless and evil until such time as each and every individual holds himself or herself directly responsible for the behavior of the whole group –the organism-of which he or she is a part.”

Many factors enter into this silo-ization of America, this evil-ization of America.  A beginning can be found in the 1953 decision to change the motto of the U.S. from E Pluribus Unum – Out of many – one -to One nation Under God, and add this to the pledge of allegiance.  How many of you know this law was introduced by segregationist senators who worshipped a God which approves of keeping blacks as second class citizens?  Whose God are we under?  The God of segregationists? The God of the hate groups?  The God of Al Qaeda?   The God of Wall Street?

We need to return to E Pluribus Unum – Out of many, one.  Different abilities, different interests, different goals, differing beliefs, each striving for harmony instead of trying crush all who have even the slightest difference.