To this reporter, David Cobb”s July 16 appearance at Fort Bragg Town Hall looked like a campaign stop and an exciting potential news lead. Cobb was the Green Party”s presidential candidate in 2008 and now lives in Humboldt County.
He had moved to a hot spot of Progressive politics, where a Green could actually win a seat in Congress or the statehouse, at a time when polls show growing numbers of progressives have become disillusioned with the Democrats.
And Cobb”s fiery inspirational speaking style literally added fire to the idea. The grandson of a Baptist preacher who was known for his colorful style in the courtroom, Cobb was the epitome of an old-fashioned stump speaker on the campaign trail.
“Every great movement in this country has seemed impossible from its inception … every great movement in this country was at best naive and unrealistic, at worst the powerful and elites called them dangerous and un-American,” he said.
Cobb was in Fort Bragg solely to promote Move-to-Amend, an organization he leads which he says is far more important than any person or political office — even the presidency. Cobb isn”t planning to run for any office.
“Amending the Constitution is the project that will inspire people, that will anger people and which in the end will be change that can make all the difference,” Cobb said.
Move-to-Amend seeks to amend the U.S. Constitution to strip human civil rights away from corporations. The idea of corporations having both possible eternal life and all the rights granted to individuals under the Constitution was never created by Congress, but by judicial activism, beginning with a Supreme Court clerk”s footnote in a 1886 that mistakenly became part of accepted precedent.
A variety of polls show the recent 5-4 vote by the Supreme Court to remove restrictions on corporate campaign contributions in the “Citizens United” decision has displeased Americans of all political stripes. The court found corporations have free speech rights like people.
Cobb finds this idea beyond goofy, well into the realm of the insane.
“The majority of Americans would agree with what I have to say if they could hear it, but the gatekeepers don”t allow it,” Cobb said.
Unlike progressives like “Democracy Now”s” Amy Goodman, who see a corporate media conspiracy, Cobb sees the failings of the media having to do with factors ranging from overwork to a conformist educational system.
“More than 85,000 people have signed at MovetoAmmend.org. and there is tremendous interest everywhere I go in the subject, but not a single story in the mainstream media at the national level, never covered on “Democracy Now,” never covered by the Nation or any of the so-called left publications,” he said.
An ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 80 percent of Americans oppose the Citizens United ruling, including 65 percent who “strongly” oppose it, an unusually high intensity of sentiment, the network reported.
Cobb is excited that the message of Move to Amend has caught on not just with the Green Party he once carried the banner for, but with a majority of Americans, including people in the “Tea Party” who are among those who have signed the petition at movetoamend.org. The ABC News poll reported that even among people who identify with the Tea Party, a substantial majority opposes the decision.
“More and more people want to be part of a vibrant democracy movement. I can easily work with principled conservatives on abolishing corporate personhood because they realize like I do that this doctrine is preventing the functioning of our democracy,” said Cobb.
“Give me a principled localist who identifies as a Republican than a mealy-mouthed Democrat who is really a corporatist and militarist at heart, any day,” he said.
Cobb”s speech was sponsored by the Alliance for Democracy, which had brought top Progressive speakers to Fort Bragg”s Town Hall on a monthly basis for 10 years. When Tom Wodetzki, events organizer, retired last year, this popular First Friday speakers series ended.
But Wodetzki unretired to put on this event with Jim Tarbell and the Alliance will hold a follow-up meeting Aug. 6, to plan local action on behalf of the Move-to-Amend effort. Details can be gotten from Wodetzki at tw@mcn.org, or 937-1113.
“David Cobb has dedicated his life today to MoveToAmend.org because he sees that as the best way to make a fundamental change in America,” said Wodetzki.
Cobb sees Move-to-Amend as being successful in 10 to15 years.
“Just as it happened with the Abolitionist Movement, just as it happened with the new Deal, this movement will happen,” he said.
Before the Civil War, corporations had to show good behavior and community support to have their charters renewed, he said. Banking and currency were local. Moving economic power from international conglomerates back to local communities will be the biggest economic shift since the abolition of slavery. That change resulted in the greatest bloodbath the United States has ever seen.
“I believe we can effect that level of systemic change this time without bloodshed,” Cobb said.
When he spoke in Fort Bragg he quipped he was preaching to the choir — but “the choir needs some choir practice,” he said.
“Progressives must learn to cross political boundaries and work with conservatives who might not agree with them on issues like war and health care. We must cross gender, class and race boundaries to do this,” Cobb said.
He exhorted the crowd, which included Mayor Doug Hammerstrom, about why the Fort Bragg City Council had not passed a resolution opposing Citizens United and corporate personhood.
Wodetzki said that will be on the agenda of the Aug. 6 meeting, thanks to Cobb.
“All ideas will be welcomed, but certainly a chief possibility is to get the City of Fort Bragg to pass a resolution opposed to corporate personhood, like the ones passed by Point Arena, Berkeley and other municipalities,” Wodetzki said.
Although a resolution has no legal force, Wodetzki says it”s a good start.
“Cobb spoke the following two nights in Willits and Ukiah, and folks in those towns might try to get their city councils to do likewise, so all four county cities oppose corporate personhood. Then the county. Then the state. Then the nation!” said Wodetzki.
Cobb took the crowd back to the 1840s and the small schoolhouse in Wisconsin where the Republican Party was founded.
“They were ridiculed, they were mocked, they abolished and uprooted a depraved institution that seemed impossible. We can do that with corporate personhood,” said Cobb.
