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Notes from GA 2003
By Don Porter, FUSS delegate to GA:
GA is a time for spreading enthusiasm. With over 7000 enthusiastic UUs
in attendance this year in Boston, and with many inspiring, eloquent,
passionate speakers, I came away stoked up. At last year's GA in Quebec
City, Lois and I were moved to learn more about the many issues involved
in "Economic Globalization". We read and studied and talked
and listened. We offered a workshop at Silver Bay last fall, and led
a FUSS church service. The FUSS Social Action Council worked to spread
knowledge of the thorny questions involved, and led a series of potluck
supper discussions in the FUSS dining hall. Those discussions reached
conclusions which we carried to GA.
At plenary and mini-assembly meetings devoted to the topic, I participated
with the aim of producing an effective Statement of Conscience, working
to be sure that the views expressed by FUSS members would be included.
The democratic process that results in the final text of the Statement
of Conscience and its adoption by the GA is complex and messy, as democracy
usually is. I am pleased to report that the outcome was excellent.
The best session I attended was Thom Hartmann's presentation "Corporate
Personhood: The Undermining of our Democracy". He electrified the
packed room with the heart of the story from his new book "Unequal
Protection", beginning with the surprising true story of the Boston
Tea Party (the British East India Company was the villain) and an explanation
of Jefferson's clear understanding that people have rights, while everything
else (governments, churches, corporations, unions, etc.) has only privileges
granted by the people. He continued with the amazing story of the granting
of the rights of personhood (in complete contradiction to the intentions
of the founders and the Constitution) to corporations in 1886.
Hartmann mentioned a few of the disasters that have resulted since then,
as the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment have been applied
to corporations instead of real human people. He encouraged us all to
set out on the long difficult path to correcting this error, saying it
may take decades, as did other vital corrections of earlier fundamental
errors such as votes for women and the civil rights movement.
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