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How Travelshift Helps Counter the Challenges Faced by Travel Agencies

By partnering with Travelshift your travel agency can become a thriving online marketplace

By partnering with Travelshift your travel agency can become a thriving online marketplace

Recently we outlined what we reckon are some of the toughest challenges facing travel industry operators at the moment. Conveniently left out though, was exactly how our Travelshift software can assist you in dealing with those challenges. You only have to read one of our expert content marketing articles to understand why we’d need a separate blog post for that! Here’s a quick recap of some of the challenges discussed, and what we think we can do to help…

  • A Few Players Dominate the Market

It’s true that huge operators dominate search engine traffic and bookings, but the simple truth is that it doesn’t have to be this way. Travellers aren’t necessarily choosing to book via these routes because they believe they are the best. With Travelshift you can shout louder and attract more attention by building a thriving marketplace of services and products. Our software has been specially developed to help smaller operators join together and eclipse the traditional big hitters. Experience in the Icelandic travel industry allowed us to realise very quickly that encouraging operators to band together is a fantastic way to cut through the noise, gain traffic and radiate authenticity. With built-in SEO optimisation and no coding required, all you need to do is get together a network of operators under your roof.

  • Greater Traveller Independence

It’s true: Travellers no longer need their hands held through the process of booking trips, tours and accommodation. What they do need though, and what they will always appreciate, are reputable operators whose quality can be vouched for by their peers. Travelshift doesn’t just allow you to congregate a host of service operators together, within its functionality you can build an entire community of local experts and bloggers, providing accurate reviews on your destinations and services, whilst giving marketplace visitors a genuine, authoritative view of what’s on offer. Marketing of this kind is the best way to tap into independent travellers – why focus on the hard sell when you can inspire?…

  • Decreased Customer Loyalty

Perhaps as a result of a highly competitive marketplace, often what is promised to travellers is far from what they eventually experience. This, combined with the huge amount of choice available online, means that agencies need to do something special to keep customers coming back. Luckily, the ability to incorporate a local community and customer reviews within our Travelshift software means that you’ll have a level of authenticity your rivals can only dream of. Ultimately the loyalty of your customers will depend on the quality of the service and products you provide. Having said that, our platform is the best way to put you in as positive a position as possible.

  • People know what they want & travel isn’t as mysterious as it used to be

This is true. Times have changed and travellers are more savvy than ever before. They often want a tailored trip specific to their exact requirements, rather than simple inspiration and guidance. Whilst our software has the capacity to offer bundles of destination information and inspirational content, naturally, you could use it to dominate niche markets by reducing your offering down to a single sector. Want to build the world’s first travel marketplace dedicated exclusively to offering trips involving penguins? With Travelshift you can. Whether you should is another matter (although that’s definitely a site we would visit).

It’s true that travellers know what they want these days; with our help  you can give it to them.

  • The Rise of the Sharing Economy

The industry has changed, with sites such as AirBnB thriving as the Sharing Economy becomes more and more popular. While many see this as a threat to the traditional powerbase of travel operators, it also represents an opportunity. Because of Travelshift’s unique community features and customisable shopfronts, you can invite a host of independent operators to come and do business under your roof. Why fight the Sharing Economy when you can be a part of it?

  • There is more choice than ever

It’s true that travellers have more potential avenues through which to book trips and activities than ever before. But at the same time you have to appreciate that more people are travelling than at any point in human history. And in a world where almost every taste is catered for, both in and out of the travel industry, this unrelenting demand means that you can develop your own niche marketplace to exploit any gap you think exists. Whether that niche is Scuba Diving, Horse riding, Food Tours, or trips to Mozambique, our platform could have you up and running in days.

  • Travellers from emerging markets want to book and search in their own language

Emerging market travellers present both a challenge and an opportunity to modern travel operators. In order to connect with them, the very first thing you need to do is speak the language. Second, you need to ensure that bookings and payments are effectively translated as well. Third and finally, marketplaces need to be localised depending on who is searching through them. Google and Facebook, for example, are blocked in China, and so marketplaces hoping to do business there need to adapt to local users and search engines. Travelshift software features full translation compatibility, so you can communicate with customers in their own language.

We have also developed full localisation capabilities, allowing your marketplace to transcend traditional boundaries and score sales from China to South America and Japan.

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Camping at Salter Path, North Carolina

John Smith, Leaf Group Updated February 21, 2017

Salter Path is located along the Bogue Banks on a barrier island in North Carolina. People come to this area to fish, boat, swim and enjoy the Atlantic Ocean beaches. Attractions in town include the Crab Shack Restaurant and the Lost Treasure miniature golf course. No campgrounds are in Salter Path itself, but three that feature camping along the ocean are available 20 minutes away in the town of Emerald Isle.

Holiday Trav-L-Park Resort

Less than 20 minutes from Salter Path and in the town of Emerald Isle, the Holiday Trav-L-Park Resort ( has 325 grass full hook-up RV sites that come with picnic tables and cable TV. Standard amenities include restrooms, showers and a laundry room. The resort also has an outdoor swimming pool, an arcade room, a playground for children and a convenience store that sells wine. An entertainment director is on hand in the the summer months to direct activities such as arts and crafts. The resort shows movies, has a Fourth of July parade and offers live entertainment Saturday evenings. A boardwalk from the campground leads directly to the beach.

Camp Ocean Forest Campground

The Camp Ocean Forest Campground ( in Emerald Isle has full hook-up RV sites and sites with water and electric connections only. Each site has a picnic table. Some of the sites are along the beach, and tent sites are also available. On-site facilities include restrooms, tiled shower rooms, a laundry room and a dump station. The campground is within walking distance of the Bogue Inlet Fishing Pier. Restaurants that can be reached on foot include the Jordan's House of Seafood, Bushwackers at Bogue Inlet Pier and Rucker Johns Restaurant in the Emerald Plantation Shopping Center.

Boardwalk RV Park

The Boardwalk RV Park (, located 20 minutes to the west of Salter Path in Emerald Isle, is a campground that rents its full hook-up sites on an annual basis only. Located along the ocean, the park has security gates, restrooms, a bath house, paved streets. Guests can also take advantage of its storage lot. The Boardwalk RV park is within walking distance of a miniature golf course and water slide. Restaurants within a couple of few minutes or less from the campground include Flipperz Family Bar & Grill, El Zarape, the Portofino Ristorante & Wine Bar,

Michelangelo's Pizza & Subs and the Emerald Grill.

Waters Edge RV Park

Located on the mainland and about a half-hour from Salter Path, the Waters Edge RV Park ( features a pier overlooking Bogue Sound. The campground has 72 full hook-up sites and 15 with water and electric only. Daily, weekly, monthly and seasonal rates are available at this campground, which has restrooms, showers and paved streets. The North Carolina Maritime Museums in Beaufort is 25 minutes from the campground. Fort Macon State Park can also be reached in about a 25-minute drive.

About the Author

John Smith is a writer with over 30 years experience. He has worked at a newspaper, various magazines and websites, and he has interests in a wide range of subjects including sports, politics and entertainment. Smith earned a bachelor's degree in history from the College of New Jersey.

Leaf Group is a USA TODAY content partner providing general travel information. Its content is produced independently of USA TODAY.

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Famous Landmarks in Giza & Cairo, Egypt

Teo Spengler, Leaf Group Updated September 12, 2018

Massive and mysterious, the Great Pyramids of Giza attract travelers and adventurers from all corners of the globe. The colossal Khufu’s Pyramid is the greatest of the great structures, the only one of the ancient “seven wonders of the world” still standing. Giza is now a suburb of Cairo, and the pyramids are the most famous draw of the area. But Cairo holds other wonders worth a visit.

Great Pyramids of Giza

Tombs of the pharaohs, constructed by tens of thousands of organized workers, the pyramids have intrigued the world for nearly 4,000 years. The vastness, massive size and improbably perfect geometry of the soaring pyramids fill visitors with awe at the skill and achievements of the ancient Egyptians.

Giza has been called a suburb of Cairo and a sister city, but modern-day Cairo sprawls right into the Giza region. While once you entered Giza through grassy fields and saw from afar the triangular shapes rising into the sky, today, the view is somewhat blocked by high-rise buildings. But once you get to the viewing platform, they are right in front of you, the four most famous sights in Egypt: the Great Pyramid of Khufu, the Pyramid of Khafre, the Pyramid of Menkaure and the Sphinx.

You can explore the pyramids at your own pace, but with a student card, you can visit for half the entry price. The light and sound show takes place nightly near the Sphinx. Find many other sites of interest in the desert plateau nearby, including additional tombs, temple ruins and smaller satellite pyramids.

Cairo Egyptian Museum

Once you’ve seen the outside of the pyramids, also see what was found inside the tombs. Head to the Egyptian Museum in downtown Cairo to the north of Midan Tahrir, a domed building that’s a treasure chest of the world’s finest ancient artifacts. These include all the marvels found inside the tomb of Tutankhamen as well as the tombs of other pharaohs, including the mummies, jewelry and arms.

This huge museum contains more than 100,000 items, so if you spend a minute viewing each item, you’ll be here over nine months. To help narrow down what you want to see, buy the excellent “Official Catalogue” in the museum.

A good place to start is the central ground floor below the atrium and rotunda. Be sure to see the three colossi of the legendary New Kingdom pharaoh Ramesses II; the limestone statue of the second dynasty pharaoh Djoser, who built the step pyramid in Saqqara; and several pieces of the destroyed palace of Akhenaten.

Currently, the Tutankhamun collection remains at this museum on the top floor, although there are plans to move it to the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza when it’s completed. Don’t miss the gold funerary mask and sarcophagus, thrones, gilded boxes and ancient trumpet.

Khan el-Khalili

Hang out in a mall and soak up age-old culture at the same time. Squeeze your way through the thin aisles of the medieval bazaar in Cairo, Khan el-Khalili. It was constructed in the 14th century. When you visit, you are transported back in time to an old Arab souk with spice smells wafting in the air, shop workers summoning you to their stalls, people bustling by in the narrow alleys. Haggling is an art that improves with practice, so bargain for whatever suits your fancy. Round out the visit with tea at legendary El-Fishawy’s cafe.

About the Author

Teo Spengler was born in central Alaska and has been traveling ever since. A freelance writer with an MA in English and MFA in Creative writing, she's written travel pieces for S.F.Gate, Fairmont Hotels, IHS Hotels, Jet Blue, Choice Hotels, Women of Green, eHow, Arizona Central and USA Today, among others. She has lived one the East Coast and the West, as well as Mexico, Switzerland, Italy and France. She and currently splits her time between San Francisco and France's Basque Country.

Leaf Group is a USA TODAY content partner providing general travel information. Its content is produced independently of USA TODAY.

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Hotels Near Cortez Road in Bradenton, Florida

Ellen Falconetti, Leaf Group Updated April 17, 2017

Bradenton, Florida, near the state's west coast, is the spring training home of the Pittsburgh Pirates. North of Sarasota, Bradenton is less expensive and more laid back than its sister city, but it shares the same easy access to powdery white sand beaches on the Gulf of Mexico. Cortez Road, also known as U.S. 684, is a main route from central Bradenton, through the fishing community of Cortez to Bradenton's beaches on Anna Maria Island. There are only a handful of hotels in this area.

Best Western Atrea Manatee Hotel

This AAA three-diamond hotel on Cortez Road is about halfway between downtown Bradenton and the city's gulf beaches on Anna Maria Island. Rooms are furnished in a contemporary style and feature broadband connections. Free wireless Internet is available in public areas, and rooms are equipped with microwaves and coffeemakers. Four kitchenette suites also are available. This pet-friendly hotel has a heated, outdoor pool and a gym with modern equipment.

Holiday Inn Express Hotel and Suites Bradenton West

Farther west, the Holiday Inn Express Hotel and Suites is just south of Cortez Road. The hotel has a colorful Florida facade in bright coral and beige. Inside, rooms are more conservatively decorated in the brand's trademark neutrals. Amenities include free buffet breakfast, an outdoor pool and whirlpool spa, a fitness area and a small business center.

The Parrot Inn

The owners of the Parrot Inn on Cortez Road West declare themselves, "loyal fans of Jimmy Buffett's music, lifestyle and strong commitment to community and environmental projects." Expect a laid-back, "old Florida" experience at this 12 unit inn of tropically themed studio and one-bedroom apartments. Accommodations are available on a daily, weekly and seasonal basis, but the owners emphasize that neither spring breakers nor long-term renters are welcome.

Bridge Walk on Bradenton Beach

Cortez Road ends at the Cortez Bridge, dividing Palma Sola Bay from Sarasota Bay. Across the bridge, the community of Bradenton Beach occupies the narrowest section of Anna Maria Island, with beaches a few hundred yards apart on both the bay and Gulf of Mexico sides. Among the many hotels in this area, BridgeWalk is a luxury option a few blocks south of the bridge. Though BridgeWalk has the appearance of an early 20th century beach community, its collection of buildings, housing studio and one bedroom apartments, was developed since the millennium. Units have full kitchens, terraces, separate bedroom and living areas and most have whirlpool baths. The resort is in the anchor of the Bradenton Beach commercial area, with restaurants and shops all around. Apartments are rented on a daily basis.

Pelican Post Motel

The Pelican Post Motel is in a residential side street, a two-minute walk to the beach and just south of Cortez Bridge in Bradenton Beach. It offers studio and one bedroom accommodations, and the clean and efficient units are typical of what is available in this area, with furnishings similar to what you might expect in a privately owned summer cottage. These furnishings include a fully equipped kitchen, a domestic-style bath or shower room and a television. The motel does not have a pool.

About the Author

Ellen Falconetti has written professionally since 1981. Her work has appeared in major newspapers in England and the U.S.A. as well as on a variety of websites and mobile media. Falconetti specializes in travel, lifestyle, telecoms and technology. She has Bachelor of Science in speech and journalism from Syracuse University and a master's degree in creative writing from a British university.

Leaf Group is a USA TODAY content partner providing general travel information. Its content is produced independently of USA TODAY.

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Things to Do in Harrison, Michigan

Jarrett Melendez, Leaf Group Updated February 21, 2017

Harrison, named after former President William Henry Harrison, is a small city in northern Michigan with a wide range of things to do for lovers of the great outdoors. This former lumber town has facilities and parks for outdoor activities such as skiing, hiking, biking, golfing, swimming, boating and even off-road driving.

Metro Beach Metropark

The Metro Beach Metropark ( covers 770 acres along one mile of the coast of Lake St. Clair. More than just a public park, Metro Beach features an Olympic-sized swimming pool with waterslides, trails for birdwatching, biking, hiking, cycling and jogging, golf course, miniature golf course and fishing areas. The park hosts special events throughout the year.

Clare County Historical Society and Museum

The Clare County Historical Society and Museum (no website; 7050 S Eberhart Rd., Clare; 989-339-1990) is your gateway to Clare County and Harrison's past, when it was Native American territory. The museum presents a collection of artifacts from the local tribes, as well as an assortment of Civil War uniforms, weapons, photographs and other tools, equipment and housewares from the era. Part of the museum experience includes a visit to the Ott Family Log Cabin, where you can witness demonstrations of skills such as blacksmithing, rug weaving, soap making and cider making.

Typical Weather

Harrison, Michigan in

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The temperature in Harrison, Michigan in September is highly unpredictable, so use the forecast as a guide, but be ready for anything!

Snow Snake Ski & Golf

During the winter months, the Snow Snake Ski & Golf Resort ( offers 10 ski and snowboard runs with seven ski lifts and 43 acres of snow tubing facilities. If you're a beginner or need a quick refresher course, the resort employs 30 instructors that give group clinics and private lessons. Once the snow has melted and the ground is dry, Snow Snake opens up a challenging 18-hole, par-71 golf course. The course also serves as a venue for special events with catered cookouts.

Rocks and Valleys Offroad Park

If you're up for an off-road adventure through more than 200 acres of trails through forests, hills, rocks, mud and other treacherous terrain, visit the Rocks and Valleys Offroad Park ( Bring your SUV or other 4x4 vehicle and go for an exciting afternoon drive through some of Michigan's natural terrain. The trails are all marked with difficulty levels so you can choose the most suitable one for your skill level.

About the Author

Jarrett Melendez is a journalist, playwright and novelist who has been writing for more than seven years. His first published work was a play titled, "Oh, Grow Up!" which he wrote and performed with a group of his classmates in 2002.

Leaf Group is a USA TODAY content partner providing general travel information. Its content is produced independently of USA TODAY.

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3 Proven Ways to Write Persuasive Marketing Emails (That Work GREAT)

E-mail is one of the most effective marketing channels you can use, and the statistics back this up.

But, the statistics only tell a part of the story.

They can't predict whether your emails will sell.

But lucky for you, that's exactly what you're going to learn in this blog post.

You spend hours in front of your computer writing newsletters and email sequences, but wonder if anyone actually wants to read what you have to say.

Over 150 000 000 emails are sent out each day, so what makes yours stand out from the crowd?

To gain a competitive edge, you need to study the psychology behind what makes people click and buy.

A basic understanding of behavioral psychology could mean the difference between an email that gets opened and an email that gets swiped right into the junk folder.

Because psychology lets you understand the basic techniques of persuasion.

A while ago, some of us at Triggerbee attended a conference in Stockholm called “Webbdagarna” (The Web Days).

Over 1 500 high-level marketers, entrepreneurs, and CEO’s gather for 2 days to network with their peers, and discover new marketing tactics and strategies.

And as usual, there’s a lot of experts speaking throughout the days to keep things going.

There was a lot of great speeches, but… one really stood out.

The speaker was Nancy Harhut, and she’s a marketing expert from Wilde Agency.

Nancy harhut from Wilde Agency speaking on stage at Webbdagarna

She’s won over 150 awards for digital and direct marketing, and she's also a frequent speaker at industry conferences.

She shared some really cool secrets about persuasion in e-mail marketing.

Here are a few of them:

  • One thing you can add to a landing page to instantly increases CTR by 17%

  • The secret to making people say “Yes” to almost any offer (hint: it’s not what you think)

  • A 6-word phrase that removes any doubt from your prospects mind, and in what situations to use it.

In this blog post, we’re going to take a closer look at these points, and also provide you with specific examples.

But, simply applying all these secrets to your e-mails won’t work unless you’ve done some groundwork.

First, you need to know about the foundation of all effective marketing…

Tap into people's emotions

Emotions guide nearly every part of our lives.

It’s our northern light, our inner compass for when we are in doubt.

Emotions are also what drive us to spend money.

We rarely buy anything based on facts and rational decisions.

We buy stuff because we want to!

Experts in the field even suggest that over 95% of buying decisions are made unconsciously.

This means if we had to choose between two identical products from two different brands, we would buy the one with the most emotional appeal.

In fact, Martin Lindstrom who wrote “Buyology“, conducted a study where he found the following:

Brands and products that evoke our emotions, like Apple, Coca-Cola or Nivea, always win.

But which emotions should you try to tap into, to trigger that instant “SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY” reaction?

Fry GIF Shut up and take my money

To find out, we’ll look at what Nancy Harhut discussed when she was on stage.

According to her, you should…

Start with Urgency or Scarcity

What would you do if you visited a store to purchase a specific item, only to find out upon arrival… there’s only 1 item left, and you can see it standing there on the shelf?

I don’t know about you, but I would reach out and grab that thing faster than a frog can swat a fly, and then proceed to give myself a mental high five.

That’s the power of urgency.

Here’s what Sarah Jamieson from Persuasionworks, says about urgency:

If something is only available in limited quantities or for a limited time, we make a mental shortcut and assume it is more valuable and of higher quality - because it’s harder to get.

Here are a few ways you can use urgency in your own strategy:

  • Set an expiration date for your offer

  • Limit the quantity of your product

  • Make an “Email only”-offer (or “Only for Facebook users”-offer)

  • Add a countdown clock

Urgency also works GREAT when you're generating leads.

For example, if you add a countdown clock to your landing pages, you could increase the CTR by 17%.

You could also use it to collect leads, like this:

Urgency popup

If you have a limited offer, try to include your expiration date in the email subject line.

Over 33% open their emails based on the subject line alone, so make sure to write a headline that taps into the interests of your subscribers.

However, the subject line only tells you what the email is about, and by itself might not be compelling enough to get someone to open it.

Then what will?

The "From" line. Check out these numbers as proof:

Graphs showing the importance of the "From" and "Subject" lines in e-mail between 2002 and 2009

What does this tell us?

People want to hear from other people.

Our suggestion is that you use your full name, or at least your first name when you send out email campaigns.

This will make your emails more trustworthy, and when someone trusts you, it's easier for them to say "Yes" to your offer.

This brings us to the next point…

Make someone feel special (Exclusivity)

This builds upon the principle of exclusivity.

We are more easily persuaded by information and offers that are exclusive to us, personally.

Spotify is a great example of this.

During their release campaign here in Sweden, you had to give away your email address in return for an exclusive invitation to try out the new music streaming app.

Also, every user that got free access to Spotify received 5 invites of their own to give away. This created some much-needed virality and made people feel special.

Screenshot of an invitation link from the early days of Spotify

Here’s how you can use it in your own marketing:

  • Use exclusive offers in your subject lines:

    • You can be one of the first to try X

    • You are selected because of your expertise”

  • Only make your offer available through an invitation

  • Use words like “Sneak peak” or “Secret” in your headlines or body copy

To make an exclusive offer work effectively requires some additional planning, but it’s worth the extra effort.

Even if exclusivity and urgency can be powerful on their own, nothing compares to the results you’ll get if you...

Use Social Proof

Let’s say you're looking for a new summer jacket, but unsure which to buy.

You might consult a friend, your partner, or your parents for advice, but something else which might affect your decision is what everyone else likes... Right?

Here's a slide from Harhut's talk:

A slide from Nancy Harhut's talk at Webbdagarna

People naturally trust people more than businesses.

When in doubt, we tend to do what everyone else does. You can see this in marketing campaigns everywhere, across all industries.

Despite what you think of Donald Trump, he and his team utilized the power of social proof during his campaign. Check this out:

Slide from Nancy Harhut's talk at Webbdagarna. An example of social proof from Donald Trumps campaign

With the help of social proof, we can remove most doubt from our prospects minds and gain instant credibility.

Nancy Harhut shared an example with a 6-word phrase that I found very interesting:

“This is what everyone else bought”

It works because we have always looked to our friends for advice, so it's natural for us to check out what others have done.

The most persuasive emails consist of a lot of small and subtle things, executed masterfully.

When it comes to email marketing, the relationship you have with your subscribers or customers is the most important thing.

If your subscribers don’t trust the email sender, they won’t buy anything no matter what tactics you attempt to use.

Here are the biggest takeaways:

  • Connect with people on an emotional level

  • Use persuasion tactics to improve results

  • Make people feel special

  • Add a countdown timer to urge quicker decisions

  • People won’t buy anything if they’re not first interested, no matter what.

  • You can create demand, but not a basic need.

E-mail is one of the most effective marketing channels you can use, and the statistics back this up.

But, the statistics only tell a part of the story.

They can't tell or predict whether your emails will sell.

Om Felix Langlet

Head of Inbound Marketing at Triggerbee with a passion for conversion and copywriting.


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Jackson, Wisconsin - Posted on August 3, 2018
Published By Grant Pullin

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Now hiring entry level Welders in the Jackson area!

Job Description

Trillium Construction is now hiring for entry level and 1-2 year Welders in the Jackson, WI area!

The schedule will be 1st shift hours, 6am-3:30pm, Monday-Friday. This is a temp-hire position with the opportunity for long term employment! We are looking for one person within the manufacturing shop, and two for onsite installations that will be all stick welding for different types of railing and/or stairway installs. The pay rate is $16-20/hour, depending on experience and no per diem or travel pay is offered. Trillium offers benefits including:

-Health, dental & vision available after 30 days.
-PTO & paid holidays
-Retirement plan available after 60 days.

If you feel you meet the qualifications above, and are interested in speaking with us further, please apply today!

-6 months - 2 years prior welding experience with MIG or Stick Welding
-Be available for first shift hours
-Be familiar and have knowledge of the welding process on construction sites, or in a manufacturing environment.
-Reliable transportation to and from the workplace.
-Ability to pass a pre-employment screening.
-Current and valid driver’s license.

Trillium Construction Services has been recruiting and hiring construction and skilled trades talent for over 30 years. Our commitment to our employees extends well beyond their time with us. Trillium Construction Services is proud to offer free online skilled trades training to all of our employees to help them progress in their career. For more information on our training program please visit Trillium is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

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Wal-Mart Is Not a Person

The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.

—John Stuart Mill

In 2003, after my book Unequal Protection was first published, I gave a talk at one of the larger law schools in Vermont. Around 300 people showed up, mostly students, with a few dozen faculty and some local lawyers. I started by asking, “Please raise your hand if you know that in 1886, in the Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad case, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons and therefore entitled to rights under the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.”

Almost everyone in the room raised their hand, and the few who didn’t probably were new enough to the law that they hadn’t gotten to study that case yet. Nobody questioned the basic premise of the statement.

And all of them were wrong.

We the People are the first three words of the Preamble to the Constitution; and from its adoption until the Robber Baron Era in the late nineteenth century, people meant human beings. In the 1886 Santa Clara case, however, the court reporter of the Supreme Court proclaimed in a “headnote”—a summary or statement added at the top of the court decision, which is separate from the decision and has no legal force whatsoever—that the word person in law and, particularly, in the Constitution, meant both humans and corporations.

Thus began in a big way (it actually started a half century earlier in a much smaller way with a case involving Dartmouth University) the corruption of American democracy and the shift, over the 125 years since then, to our modern corporate oligarchy.

Most recently, in a January 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court, under Chief Justice John G. Roberts, took the radical step of overturning more than a hundred years of laws passed by elected legislatures and signed by elected presidents and declared that not only are corporations “persons” but that they have constitutional rights such as the First Amendment right to free speech.

This decision is clear evidence of how far we have drifted away as a nation from our foundational principles and values. Particularly since the presidency of Ronald Reagan, over the past three decades our country and its democratic ideals have been hijacked by what Joseph Pulitzer a hundred years ago famously called “predatory plutocracy.”

The Citizens United decision, which empowers and elevates corporations above citizens, is not just a symbolic but a real threat to our democracy, and only the will of We the People, exercised through a constitutional amendment to deny personhood to corporations, can slay the dragon the Court has unleashed.

The “Disadvantaged” Corporation

In 2008 a right-wing group named Citizens United put together a 90-minute “documentary,” a flat-out hit-job on Hillary Clinton (then a senator and presidential aspirant) and wanted to run commercials promoting it on TV stations in strategic states. The Federal Election Commission (FEC) ruled that the movie and the television advertisements promoting it were really “campaign ads” and stopped them from airing because they violated McCain-Feingold (aka the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002), which bars “independent expenditures” by corporations, unions, or other organizations 30 days before a primary election or 60 days before a general election. (Direct corporate contributions to campaigns of candidates have been banned repeatedly and in various ways since 1907, when Teddy Roosevelt pushed through the Tillman Act, which made it a felony for a corporation to give money to a politician for federal office; in 1947 the Taft-Hartley Act extended this ban to unions.)

McCain-Feingold was a good bipartisan achievement by conservative senator John McCain and liberal senator Russ Feingold to limit the ability of corporations to interfere around the edges of campaigns. The law required the “I’m John McCain and I approve this message” disclaimer and limited the amount of money that could be spent on any federal politician’s behalf in campaign advertising. It also limited the ability of multimillionaires to finance their own elections.

But the law offended the members of the economic elite in this country who call themselves “conservatives” and believe that they should be able to spend vast amounts of money to influence electoral and legislative outcomes.

The Conservative Worldview

In part, this belief is derived from a more fundamental—and insidious—belief that political power in the hands of average working people is dangerous and destabilizing to America; this is the source of the antipathy of such conservatives to both democracy and labor unions. They believe in “original sin”—that we’re all essentially evil and corruptible (because we came out of the womb of a woman, who was heir to Eve’s apple-eating)—and therefore it’s necessary for a noble, well-educated, and wealthy (male) elite, working behind the scenes, to make the rules for and run our society.

Among the chief proponents of this Bible-based view of the errancy of average working people are the five right-wing members of the current U.S. Supreme Court—John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, and Anthony Kennedy—who have consistently worked to make America more hierarchical, only with a small, wealthy “conservative/corporate” elite in charge instead of a divinely ordained Pope.

And even though the Citizens United case—which landed in the Supreme Court’s lap after the federal court in Washington, D.C., ruled in favor of the FEC ban—was only about a small slice of the McCain-Feingold law, the Republican Five used it as an opportunity to make a monumental change to constitutionally em- power corporations and undo a century of legal precedents.

After listening to oral arguments in early 2009, the Roberts Court chose to ignore those arguments and the originally narrow pleadings in the case, expanded the scope of the case, and scheduled hearings for September of that year, asking that the breadth of the arguments include reexamining the rationales for Congress to have any power to regulate corporate “free speech.”

In this they were going along with a request from Theodore B. “Ted” Olson, the solicitor general under George W. Bush, and would now go back to reexamine and perhaps overturn the Court’s own precedent in the Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce case of 1990. In that case the Court held that it was constitutional for Congress to place limits on corporate political activities; and in a 2003 case, the Court (before the additions of Alito and Roberts) had already upheld McCain-Feingold as constitutional.1

Thus, on January 21, 2010, in a 5-to-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled in the Citizens United case that it is unconstitutional for Congress to approve, or the president to sign into law, most restrictions on the “right” of a corporate “person” to heavily influence political campaigns so long as they don’t directly donate to the politicians’ campaign or party.

The majority decision, written by Justice Kennedy at the direction of Chief Justice Roberts, explicitly states that the government has virtually no right to limit corporate power when it comes to corporate “free speech.”2

Kennedy began this line of reasoning by positing, “Premised on mistrust of governmental power, the First Amendment stands against attempts to disfavor certain subjects or viewpoints.”

It sounds reasonable. He even noted, sounding almost like Martin Luther King Jr. or John F. Kennedy, that:

By taking the right to speak from some and giving it to others, the Government deprives the disadvantaged person or class of the right to use speech to strive to establish worth, standing, and respect for the speaker’s voice. The Government may not by these means deprive the public of the right and privilege to determine for itself what speech and speakers are worthy of consideration.

But who is that “disadvantaged person or class” of whom Kennedy was speaking? His answer is quite blunt (the parts in single quotation marks are where he is quoting from previous Supreme Court decisions): “The Court has recognized that First Amendment protection extends to corporations…. Under that rationale of these precedents, political speech does not lose First Amendment protection ‘simply because its source is a corporation.’”

Two sentences later he nails it home: “The Court has thus rejected the argument that political speech of corporations or other associations should be treated differently under the First Amendment simply because such associations are not ‘natural persons.’” (Historically, natural persons has been the term for humans under both British common law and American constitutional law; corporations, churches, and governments are referred to as artificial persons.)

Bemoaning how badly corporations and their trade associations (like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s leading front-group player in both national and local politics for decades and the number one lobbyist in terms of spending) had been treated by the Congress of the United States for more than a hundred years, Kennedy stuck up for the “disadvantaged” corporate “persons” the Roberts Court was seeking to protect:

The censorship we now confront is vast in its reach. The Government has “muffled the voices that best represent the most significant segments of the economy.” And “the electorate has been deprived of information, knowledge, and opinion vital to its function.” By suppressing the speech of manifold corporations, both for-profit and non-profit, the Government prevents their voices and viewpoints from reaching the public and advising voters on which persons or entities are hostile to their interests.

By reinterpreting the Fourteenth Amendment, which says that no “person” (the amendment’s authors didn’t add the word natural because it was written to free the slaves after the Civil War, so they figured person was sufficient) shall be denied equal protection under the law, the Roberts Court turned American democracy inside out. “We the People” now explicitly means “We the Citizens, Corporations, and Churches” with a few of the richest humans who run them thrown in.

Such a view is antithetical to how the Framers of our Constitution viewed corporations.

A Historical Perspective

The Founders of this nation were so wary of corporate power that when the British Parliament voted to give a massive tax break— through the Tea Act of 1773—to the East India Company on thousands of tons of tea it had in stock so that the company could wipe out its small, entrepreneurial colonial competitors, the colonists staged the Boston Tea Party.

This act of vandalism against the world’s largest transnational corporation, destroying more than a million dollars’ worth (in today’s money) of corporate property, led the British to pass the Boston Ports Act of 1774, which declared the Port of Boston closed to commerce until the city paid back the East India Company for its spoiled tea. It was an economic embargo like we declared against Cuba, Iraq, and Iran, and it led the colonists straight into open rebellion and the Revolutionary War.

Thus the Framers of our Constitution intentionally chose not to even use the word corporation in that document, as they wanted business entities and churches to be legally established at the state level, where local governments could keep an eye on them.

Throughout most of the first 100 years of our nation, corporations were severely restricted so that they could not gain too much power or wealth. It was illegal for a corporation to buy or own stock in another corporation, to engage in more than one type of business, to participate in politics, and to even exist for more than 40 years (so that the corporate form couldn’t be used by wealthy and powerful families to amass great wealth in an intergenerational way and avoid paying an estate tax).

All of that came to an end during the “chartermongering” era of the 1890s when, after Ohio prepared to charge John D. Rockefeller with antitrust and other violations of the corporate laws of that state, he challenged other states to broaden and loosen their laws regarding corporate charters. A competition broke out among, primarily, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, and Delaware, which Delaware ultimately won by enacting laws that were the most corporate-friendly in the nation. This is the reason why today more than half of the NYSE-listed companies are Delaware corporations.

In addition, the largest corporations of the era—the railroads—began a relentless campaign in the 1870s that reached its zenith in 1886, claiming that as “corporate persons” they should have “rights” under the Bill of Rights in the Constitution. That zenith was the Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad case, where the Supreme Court did not rule that corporations are persons, but the court reporter claimed it had, establishing language that was cited repeatedly in subsequent Court decisions ratifying this newly found “corporate personhood” doctrine and cementing it into law.*

A Patriotic Dissent

When the Republican Five on the Supreme Court ruled in the Citizens United case and handed to corporations nearly full human rights of free speech, it didn’t come out of the blue. Although no bill in Congress from the time of George Washington to Barack Obama had declared that corporations should have these “human rights” (to the contrary, multiple laws had said the opposite), and no president had ever spoken in favor of corporate human rights, the five men in the majority on the Supreme Court took it upon themselves to hand our country over to the tender mercies of the world’s largest transnational corporations.

The Court’s Minority Pushes Back

This didn’t sit well with the other four members of the Supreme Court.

Justice John Paul Stevens, with the concurrence of Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Sonia Sotomayor, wrote the dissenting opinion in the Citizens United case.

Calling the decision “misguided” in the first paragraph of the 90-page dissent, Stevens (and his colleagues) pointed out that the Court majority had just effectively handed our country over to any foreign interest willing to incorporate here and spend money on political TV ads.

If taken seriously, our colleagues’ assumption that the identity of a speaker has no relevance to the Government’s ability to regulate political speech would lead to some remarkable conclusions. Such an assumption would have accorded the propaganda broadcasts to our troops by “Tokyo Rose” during World War II the same protection as speech by Allied commanders. More pertinently, it would appear to afford the same protection to multinational corporations controlled by foreigners as to individual Americans: To do otherwise, after all, could “‘enhance the relative voice’” of some (i.e., humans) over others (i.e., corporations).

In the same paragraph, Stevens further points out the absurdity of granting corporations what are essentially citizenship rights under the Constitution, suggesting that perhaps the next Court decision will be to give corporations the right to vote: “Under the majority’s view, I suppose it may be a First Amendment problem that corporations are not permitted to vote, given that voting is, among other things, a form of speech.”

Quoting earlier Supreme Court cases and the Founders, Stevens wrote: “The word ‘soulless’ constantly recurs in debates over corporations…Corporations, it was feared, could concentrate the worst urges of whole groups of men.” Thomas Jefferson famously fretted that corporations would subvert the republic.

And, Stevens reasoned, the Founders could not have possibly meant to confer First Amendment rights on corporations when they adopted the Constitution in 1787 and proposed the Bill of Rights in 1789 because, “All general business corporation statutes appear to date from well after 1800”:

The Framers thus took it as a given that corporations could be comprehensively regulated in the service of the public welfare. Unlike our colleagues, they had little trouble distinguishing corporations from human beings, and when they constitutional- ized the right to free speech in the First Amendment, it was the free speech of individual Americans they had in mind.

To make his point, Stevens even quoted Chief Justice John Marshall, who served from his appointment by President John Adams in 1800 until 1835, making him one of America’s longest serving chief justices. Sometimes referred to as the “father of the Supreme Court,” Marshall had written in an early-nineteenth- century decision some text Stevens quoted into his Citizen’s United dissent: “A corporation is an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law. Being a mere creature of law, it posses only those properties which the charter of its creation confers upon it.”

Stevens’s dissent called out Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Thomas, and Kennedy for their behavior in the Citizen’s United ruling, which he said was “the height of recklessness to dismiss Congress’ years of bipartisan deliberation and its reasoned judgment…”:

The fact that corporations are different from human beings might seem to need no elaboration, except that the majority opinion almost completely elides it….Unlike natural persons, corporations have “limited liability” for their owners and managers, “perpetual life,” separation of ownership and control, “and favorable treatment of the accumulation of assets…that enhance their ability to attract capital and to deploy their resources in ways that maximize the return on their shareholders’ investments.” Unlike voters in U.S. elections, corporations may be foreign controlled.

Noting that “they inescapably structure the life of every citizen,” Stevens continued:

It might be added that corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires. Corporations help structure and facilitate the activities of human beings, to be sure, and their “personhood” often serves as a useful legal fiction. But they are not themselves members of “We the People” by whom and for whom our Constitution was established.

In this very eloquent and pointed dissent, Stevens even waxed philosophical, asking a series of questions for which there couldn’t possible be any clear or obvious answers if the Court were to maintain the “logic” of its Citizens United ruling:

It is an interesting question “who” is even speaking when a business corporation places an advertisement that endorses or attacks a particular candidate. Presumably it is not the customers or employees, who typically have no say in such matters. It cannot realistically be said to be the shareholders, who tend to be far removed from the day-to-day decisions of the firm and whose political preferences may be opaque to management. Perhaps the officers or directors of the corporation have the best claim to be the ones speaking, except their fiduciary duties generally prohibit them from using corporate funds for personal ends. Some individuals associated with the corporation must make the decision to place the ad, but the idea that these individuals are thereby fostering their self-expression or cultivating their critical faculties is fanciful.

The dissenting justices argued that the majority’s ruling wasn’t merely wrong, both in a contemporary and a historical sense, but that it was dangerous. The dissent was explicit, clear, and shocking in how bluntly the three most senior members of the Court (along with the newbie, Sotomayor) called out their colleagues, two of whom (Roberts and Alito) had been just recently appointed by George W. Bush.

The dissenters noted that it was their five colleagues (and their friends in high places) who were clamoring for corporations to have personhood and free-speech rights, not the American people who were the “listeners” of such speech: “It is only certain Members of this Court, not the listeners themselves, who have agitated for more corporate electioneering.”

They continued, noting that corporate interests are inherently different from the public (and human) interests:*

[The] Austin [Supreme Court decision that upheld McCain/ Feingold in 2003] recognized that there are substantial reasons why a legislature might conclude that unregulated general treasury expenditures will give corporations “unfair influence” in the electoral process, and distort public debate in ways that undermine rather than advance the interests of listeners. The legal structure of corporations allows them to amass and deploy financial resources on a scale few natural persons can match. The structure of a business corporation, furthermore, draws a line between the corporation’s economic interests and the political preferences of the individuals associated with the corporation; the corporation must engage the electoral process with the aim “to enhance the profitability of the company, no matter how persuasive the arguments for a broader or conflicting set of priorities.”

By having free-speech rights equal with people, Stevens argued, corporations will actually harm the “competition among ideas” that the Framers envisioned when they wrote the FirstAmendment:

“[A] corporation…should have as its objective the conduct of business activities with a view to enhancing corporate profit and shareholder gain.” In a state election…the interests of nonresident corporations may be fundamentally adverse to the interests of local voters. Consequently, when corporations grab up the prime broadcasting slots on the eve of an election, they can flood the market with advocacy that bears little or no correlation to the ideas of natural persons or to any broader notion of the public good. The opinions of real people may be marginalized.

Moreover, just the fact that corporations can participate on an unlimited basis as actors in the political process will, inevitably, cause average working Americans—the 99 percent who make less than $300,000 a year—to conclude that their “democracy” is now rigged.

The result will be that more and more people will simply stop participating in politics (it’s interesting to note how many politicians announced within weeks of this decision that they would not run for reelection), stop being informed about politics, and stop voting. Our democracy will wither and could even die.

When citizens turn on their televisions and radios before an election and hear only corporate electioneering, they may lose faith in their capacity, as citizens, to influence public policy. A Government captured by corporate interests, they may come to believe, will be neither responsive to their needs nor willing to give their views a fair hearing.

The predictable result is cynicism and disenchantment: an increased perception that large spenders “call the tune” and a reduced “willingness of voters to take part in democratic governance.”

And even if humans were willing to try to take on corporations (maybe a billionaire or two with good ethics would run for office?), virtually every single person who tries to run for office will have to dance to the corporate tune or risk being totally destroyed by the huge and now-unlimited amounts of cash that corporations can rain down on our heads.

The majority’s unwillingness to distinguish between corporations and humans similarly blinds it to the possibility that corporations’ “war chests” and their special “advantages” in the legal realm may translate into special advantages in the market for legislation.

Scalia Is Offended

Horrified by the blunt language of the dissent and of being called “misguided,” “dangerous,” and “reckless” by his colleagues, Justice Scalia wrote a short concurring opinion in an attempt to once more speak up for the “disadvantaged” corporations:

Despite the corporation-hating quotations the dissent has dredged up, it is far from clear that by the end of the 18th century corporations were despised. If so, how came there to be so many of them?…Indeed, to exclude or impede corporate speech is to muzzle the principal agents of the modern free economy. We should celebrate rather than condemn the addition of this [corporate] speech to the public debate.

Justice Roberts offered his own short concurring opinion, in self-defense, saying that for “our democracy” to work, the voices in the public arena shouldn’t just be a human on a soapbox but must include massive transnational corporations:

First Amendment rights could be confined to individuals, subverting the vibrant public discourse that is at the foundation of our democracy.

The Court properly rejects that theory, and I join its opinion in full. The first Amendment protects more than just the individual on a soapbox and the lonely pamphleteer.

In other words, if a single corporation spends $700 million in television advertising to tell you that, for example, Senator Bernie Sanders is a “bad person” because he sponsored legislation that limits its profitability, and Sanders can raise only $3 million to defend himself with a few local TV spots, that’s just the reality of “the vibrant public discourse that is at the foundation of our democracy.”

The Decision and the Damage Done

There is no better evidence of the harm that the Citizens United decision poses to our democracy than to see the immediate reaction from the corporations—or, more accurately, the persons who run the corporations.

Two weeks after the decision, a headline in the New York Times said: “In a Message to Democrats, Wall St. Sends Cash to G.O.P.” The article quoted banking industry sources (who now knew that they could use their considerable financial power politically) as saying that they were experiencing “buyer’s remorse” over having given Obama and the Democrats $89 million in 2008: “Republicans are rushing to capitalize on what they call Wall Street’s ‘buyer’s remorse’ with the Democrats. And industry executives and lobbyists are warning Democrats that if Mr. Obama keeps attacking Wall Street ‘fat cats,’ they may fight back by withholding their cash.”3

The article quoted several banking sources as saying they were outraged that the president had criticized their industry for the financial meltdown of 2008 or their big bonuses. It wrapped up with a quote from John Cornyn, the senator from Texas tasked with raising money for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, noting that he was now making regular visits to Wall Street in New York City. Speaking of the Democrats who dared challenge the banksters, he crowed: “I just don’t know how long you can expect people to contribute money to a political party whose main plank of their platform is to punish you.”

It was a loud shot across Obama’s bow, and within two weeks the president had changed his tune on a wide variety of initiatives, ranging from taxes on the wealthy to backing away from truly strong regulations on the banking, insurance, and pharmaceutical industries and instead embracing more-cosmetic “reforms.”

The fact is that about $5 billion was spent in all the political campaigns from coast to coast in the elections of 2008, a bit less than $2 billion of that on the presidential race. Compare that with January 2010, when a small cadre of senior executives and employees of the nation’s top banks on Wall Street split up among themselves more than $145 billion in personal bonus money.

If those few thousand people had decided to take just 3 percent of their bonus and redirect it into a political campaign, no politician in America could stand against them. And now none do. And that’s just the banksters! Profits in the tens and hundreds of billions of dollars were reported in 2009 by the oil, pharmaceutical, insurance, agriculture, and retailing industries—all now considering how to use a small part of their profits to influence political races.

While WellPoint’s Anthem Blue Cross division was raising insurance rates in California by up to 36 percent, the company declared a quarterly profit of well over $2 billion. And the six largest oil companies were making more than a billion dollars in profits per week. Even the smallest coalition, funneling their money through the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, now has the ability to promote or destroy any politician.

There are now no limits to what corporations (or rich individuals using a corporation as a front) can spend to influence elections or ballot measures. Every member of Congress will now know before he or she votes in favor of any legislation that is opposed by a particular industry, or votes against a bill that is favored by that industry, that it will have consequences come reelection time.

Anyone concerned with the integrity of the political system should note that this decision affects the legitimacy of elections not only of the legislative and executive branches but also of judges. As Bill Moyers and Michael Winship wrote in the Huffington Post in February 2010,4

Ninety-eight percent of all the lawsuits in this country take place in the state courts. In 39 states, judges have to run for election— that’s more than 80 percent of the state judges in America.

The Citizens United decision made those judges who are elected even more susceptible to the corrupting influence of cash, for many of their decisions in civil cases directly affect corporate America, and a significant amount of the money judges raise for their campaigns comes from lobbyists and lawyers.

Those inclined to underestimate the influence of cash on judicial elections should be reminded of some basic facts that Moyers and Winship provided:

During the 1990s, candidates for high court judgeships in states around the country and the parties that supported them raised $85 million…for their campaigns. Since the year 2000, the numbers have more than doubled to over $200 million.

The nine justices currently serving on the Texas Supreme Court have raised nearly $12 million in campaign contributions. The race for a seat on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court last year was the most expensive judicial race in the country, with more than four and a half million dollars spent by the Democrats and Republicans. With the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, corporate money’s muscle got a big hypodermic needle full of steroids.

This decision was a naked handoff of raw political power to corporate forces by five unelected judges; and as we saw earlier, the other four members of the Court said so in the plainest and most blunt terms.

Indeed, the First Amendment now protects the “free speech” rights of the presidents of Russia and China and Iran to form corporations in the United States and pour millions of dollars toward supporting or defeating members of Congress or presidential aspirants who favor trade policies or a foreign policy that suits their interests.

This decision also protects the “right” of the largest polluting corporations on earth to politically destroy any politician who wants to give any more authority to the Environmental Protection Agency or to elevate to elected status any politician who is willing to dismantle the EPA.

This Supreme Court decision has vested power in already powerful corporations that they never had before: to directly affect the outcome of elections for public office and of ballot measures.

So what’s to be done?

Such a radical decision requires an equally radical response that must be both far-reaching and permanent.

Move to Amend

There are only three ways to undo a bad Supreme Court decision. All three have been used at various times.

The first is to wait until the composition of the Court changes —one or more of the bad judges retires or dies and is replaced by others more competent. (It’s worth noting that even former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, a Ronald Reagan appointee and longtime Republican activist, condemned the Citizens United ruling.) Then the Court takes on a case that involves the same issues and, like with Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade, pushes the Court forward in time.

The second is for the American people, the president, and Congress to understand the horror of the consequences of such a decision and break with the Court.

Arguably, this happened with the Dred Scott v. Sanford decision in 1857, which ruled that black persons were actually property and thus led us directly into the Civil War. That Supreme Court decision led to Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and the passage of legislation clarifying the rights of African Americans, although it ultimately took a war and the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to purge slavery from our laws and our Constitution.

Ironically, the Citizens United case is the mirror of Dred Scott in that it ruled that a property—a corporation—is now a person. The third way to undo—or supersede—a Supreme Court decision is to amend the Constitution itself so that the Court can no longer play with the semantics of ambiguous or broadly worded language. We did this, for example, to both institute and then repeal the prohibition, manufacture, and sale of alcohol.

The constitutional amendment route seems the most practical and long lasting, even though it may be the most challenging.

More than 29,000 amendments to our Constitution have been put forth in Congress since the founding of our republic, and only 27 have passed the hurdle of approval by two-thirds of the members of Congress and three-fourths of the states. Nonetheless, successful amendments are driven by a widespread sense that the change is absolutely essential for the good of the nation.

An example of this is the Twenty-sixth Amendment to drop the voting age from 21 to 18. It was largely brought about by the rage and the impotence that young people felt in America during the Vietnam War era (as expressed in the song “Eve of Destruction”: “You’re old enough to kill, but not for votin’…”). The need for young people to participate in a political process that could lead them to war was so clear that the Twenty-sixth Amendment passed the Senate in March 1971 and was completely ratified by the states on July 1, 1971.

As Americans see our politicians repeatedly being corrupted by corporate influence—from health care to banking to labor standards to the environment—and the middle class continues to collapse as a result, this may well be one of those moments in time when an amendment can make it through the Congress and the states in a relatively short time.

Several proposals are on the table, but I particularly recommend the models put forth by Jeff Milchen and David Cobb. Milchen, who founded ReclaimDemocracy.org, is one of the leading resources on the issue of corporate personhood; and Cobb’s Web site, www.MoveToAmend.org, incorporates Jeff’s proposed constitutional amendment as well as other options. Milchen’s proposed amendment, more explicit than simply inserting the word natural before the word person in the Fourteenth Amendment, could seriously begin the process of returning the United States to a democratic republic that is once again responsive and responsible to its citizens instead of its most powerful corporations. The proposed amendment reads as follows:

  • Section 1. The U.S. Constitution protects only the rights of living human beings.
  • Section 2. Corporations and other institutions granted the privilege to exist shall be subordinate to any and all laws enacted by citizens and their elected governments.
  • Section 3. Corporations and other for-profit institutions are prohibited from attempting to influence the outcome of elections, legislation or government policy through the use of aggregate resources or by rewarding or repaying employees or directors to exert such influence.
  • Section 4. Congress shall have power to implement this article by appropriate legislation.

Other variations on this amendment, some simpler and some more complex, can be found at www.MoveToAmend.org.

The elegance of explicitly denying constitutional rights to anything except “living human beings” is that it will not only roll back Citizens United but also allow future legislatures to challenge corporate claims to “rights” of privacy (Fourth Amendment), protection from self-incrimination (Fifth Amendment), and the power to force themselves on communities that don’t want them because to do otherwise is “discrimination” (Fourteenth Amendment).

We must be very careful that any amendment put forth isn’t just limited to giving Congress the power to regulate campaign spending; to do so would leave a wide swath of other Bill of Rights powers in the hands of corporations. Instead, an amendment must explicitly overturn the headnote to the 1886 Santa Clara decision that asserted that corporations are the same as natural persons in terms of constitutional protections.

By doing this we can begin the transition back from a corporate oligarchic state to the constitutionally limited representative democratic republic our Founders envisioned.

Even before the Citizens United case blew open the doors to a corporate takeover of American politics, the corrosive influence of corporations having “rights” was already evident. Now corporate influence in our politics can completely dominate and determine the outcome of elections—unless and until We the People once again assert our right to do what’s best for the common good and, through the mechanism of a constitutional amendment, relegate corporations to their rightful place—as legal fictions and not natural persons.

*Again, the words in quotation marks are where, in the dissent, the justices themselves are quoting from previous Supreme Court rulings. I’ve removed all the reference citations, as they make it hard to read; anybody wanting to dive deeper into this 90-page dissent can read it online at www.supreme court.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-205.pdf.

1. Robert Barnes, “Justices to Review Campaign Finance Law Constraints,” Washington Post, June 30, 2009, http://www.washington post.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/29/AR2009062903997 .html.

2. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. __ (2010), http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-205.pdf.
216 Rebooting the American Dream

3. David D. Kirkpatrick, “In a Message to Democrats, Wall St. Sends Cash to G.O.P.,” New York Times, February 7, 2010,http://www .nytimes.com/2010/02/08/us/politics/08lobby.html.

4. Bill Moyers and Michael Winship, “What Are We Bid for American Justice?” Huffington Post, February 19, 2010, http://www.huffington post.com/bill-moyers/what-are-webid-for-ameri_b_469335.html.

Thom Hartmann is a New York Times bestselling Project Censored Award winning author and host of a nationally syndicated progressive radio talk show. You can learn more about Thom Hartmann at his website and find out what stations broadcast his program. He is also now has a daily television program at RT Network. You can also listen to Thom over the Internet.

Copyright Thom Hartmann and Mythical Research, Inc. Truthout has obtained exclusive rights to reprint this content. It may not be reproduced, and is not covered by our Creative Commons license.


text:
Experiment Demonstrates The Deadly Power Of Social Compliance

By Dylan Charles, Waking Times

In his 1974 book, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View, Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram discusses in detail the findings of his now famous experiment. Milgram demonstrated just how easy it is to convince an ordinary person to commit torture and murder under the instruction of an authority figure.

Intrigued by the role of Nazi military personnel in concentration camps during WWII, Milgram wanted to know how much coercion people needed in order to willingly inflict harm on another person.

“He asked volunteers to deliver an electric shock to a stranger. Unbeknownst to the volunteers, there was no shock—and the people they were shocking were actors pretending to be terribly hurt, even feigning heart attacks. Milgram found that most people would keep delivering the shocks when ordered by a person in a lab coat, even when they believed that person was gravely injured. Only a tiny percentage of people refused.” [Source]

The suggested conclusion is that people are inherently unable to think for themselves when given a subordinate role in some authoritarian hierarchy, such as the role of the ordinary citizen in a state-controlled world. A documentary of this experiment can be seen here.

The Milgram study was controversial in that some felt the results were skewed in favor of a predetermined bias. In the fifty-plus years since the experiment, there have been no other major research studies to confirm Milgram’s findings. Nevertheless, the presumption that normal people will go as far as to commit murder if they are relieved of responsibility by an authority figure feels inherently truthful in a world of so many organized atrocities.

The question is:

“Can we be manipulated through social pressure to commit murder?” ~Derren Brown

It’s an important question at a time when the converging technologies of AI and social media are affecting individual and group psychology in not yet understood ways. British illusionist Derren Brown recently conducted a similar experiment, this time in a feature documentary for Netflix entitled, The Push.

“This show is about how readily we hand over authorship of our lives, everyday, and the dangers of losing that control,” says Brown, who organized the reality TV-like experiment in which ordinary people were duped into doing things most of us would never even consider.

At the heart of the experiment lies the powerful effects of social pressure and social compliance, along with the individual’s inherent need to belong and fit into society. It also questions the nature of individuality, while demonstrating that many of us simply don’t have the courage to assert our own moral courage when faced with even a slight amount of authoritarian pressure.

The Push begins with a phony police officer calling a cafe worker on the phone and in a quick minute, without even a face-to-face interaction, convinces this person to steal a woman’s baby. Interestingly, the worker carries out the abduction even while expressing significant hesitance.

The main experiment picks up from there, involving unwitting subjects who are gradually convinced of the need to push another person off of a high-rise building. It’s an elaborate setup, which builds upon one small act of compliance after another until the subject is put into a situation where they are encouraged to kill a man they just met.

It’s a rather theatrical and unscientific presentation, but the results are noteworthy as three out of four participants actually shove an actor off of a building, believing they are committing murder, after being pressured into it by a small group of others. It’s a shocking act of compliance and subservience to the pressures of a peer group and a persistent authority figure.

What we don’t know about society today, though, is just how many people are this extremely socially compliant, capable of doing anything to appease the directives of others. As Brown notes, “the more socially compliant a person is, the more likely they are to look to others for signs on how to behave. And the more people, the greater the pressure to join in.”

This says a great deal about humans. Are we somehow wired to abandon our own morals and sense of self-integrity for the false belief that fitting into a group is necessary for survival?

A trailer for this show is seen below.

Read more articles by Dylan Charles.

About the Author

Dylan Charles is the editor of Waking Times and co-host of Redesigning Reality, both dedicated to ideas of personal transformation, societal awakening, and planetary renewal. His personal journey is deeply inspired by shamanic plant medicines and the arts of Kung Fu, Qi Gong and Yoga. After seven years of living in Costa Rica, he now lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains, where he practices Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and enjoys spending time with family. He has written hundreds of articles, reaching and inspiring millions of people around the world.

This article (Experiment Demonstrates the Deadly Power of Social Compliancewas originally created and published by Waking Times and is published here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to DylanCharles and WakingTimes.com. It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution, author bio, and this copyright statement.

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Aired Monday May 21, 2:00pm - 2:15pmon Children's ITV

Almost Naked Animals

Trance Romance

Sloth hypnotises Howie which results in making him more romantic. However, later Sloth starts to miss the real Howie.

Comedy / Animated / Children
Original air date
Cast and crew
  • Robert TinklerHowie
  • Sean CullenPiggy/Narwhal
  • Howard JermoneOcto
  • Emilie-Claire BarlowBunny
  • David BerniDuck
  • Linda KashSloth