[Peace-discuss] Fw: [OccupyCU] Move to Amend petitioning update, reactions to "We're from Occupy"

[David Johnson]

If anyone is a registered voter who lives in the city of Champaign, please contact Colan Holmes at the e-mail address below.

Thanks

David Johnson

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Colan Holmes 
To: occupycu at lists.chambana.net 
Sent: Sunday, February 19, 2012 4:36 PM
Subject: [OccupyCU] Move to Amend petitioning update,reactions to "We're from Occupy"


Hi all,

The basic (from Facebook): Chandler, Pat and Gabe petitioned yesterday, gathering a total 40 signatures to place a vote regarding corporate personhood and election finance on the agenda of the Cunningham and City of Champaign townships' April 10 public meetings (see below for the resolutions' formal wording). The petitions will be submitted to the Township Clerks in a week, allowing for more to sign in support. Mostly positive responses to statements we were from Occupy CU. Streets covered were Nevada, from Lincoln to McCullough, and Church, from Wright to 1st.

More detail: We have plenty of signatures from Urbana, but are one short for the required 15 needed to put the proposal on the City of Champaign township meeting agenda. Surpassing the 15 required signatures shouldn't be to hard to do in one week though.

When I submit the paperwork, I will get the date and time of any township meetings that would probably be a good idea to attend: the April 10 meeting is certainly a must (to be present to vote), but there may be another, March meeting in which the Township Boards (City Councils) decide on whether the resolution is "proper business" for people to vote on on April 10.

Reactions to the statement that we were from Occupy CU: We talked with about 60 people. There were no outright negative reactions, perhaps due to the petitioning routes being in progressive areas. Two people did mention they were afraid of increasing violence within Occupy, but they both signed the petition. One man in Northeast Champaign (Church St) challenged me to explain how the petition was relevant to everyday working people like himself -- after pulling some statistics/the graph from Michael Weissman's flier and juxtaposing corporate power with everyday worker's rights (unions, pay, benefits) he shook my hand and wished me luck. A woman in the same area was very happy to hear we were doing something locally, and said she was going to tune in to Occupy The Air when I mentioned it was currently on.

"Thank you for doing this. Godspeed, you. I will pray you all are successful."

Solidarity,
Chandler

The proposed resolution(s):
The U.S. Supreme Court held, in "Citizens United v. FEC", that corporations have the rights of real human citizens and are entitled to spend unlimited amounts of money in support of political campaigns. To undo that decision, the people of the [Cunningham Township/City of Champaign Township] support an Amendment to the United States Constitution to establish that:

1. A corporation does not have the same rights as an actual person, and

2. Money is not speech and, therefore, regulating political spending is not equivalent to limiting political speech.

We further request that our city, state and federal representatives enact resolutions and legislation to advance the two positions proposed as part of the Amendment, with reference to the need for an Amendment. 


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