This is Paul Cienfuegos' talk on the ascendancy of corporate rights over the rights of of people as citizens, and how this trend can be reversed. The assertion of corporate over citizen rights came into sharp focus this January with the Supreme Court's "Citizens United" decision which opens the floodgates of unrestricted corporate money into election campaigns, under the guise of free speech. Countering this trend are citizen revolts, many in small communities, which assert the right of the people who live in a community to decide what happens to that community and to its natural environment. Abroad, this movement worked with the government of Ecuador to include in its constitution the inherent rights of nature, its ecosystems, and its genetic heritage.
- KBOO