Coalition of Politicians and Corporations Moves Statewide
Effort to Ban Democracy in Colorado.
By Cliff Willmeng
April, 2014
Undaunted by the power and special interests of nearly five
million Colorado citizens, a coalition of politicians and industrial and corporate
leaders are steadily advancing a bold campaign to ban democracy and community
rights in the hotly contested state. Democracy, a long-debated idea between multinationals
and common human beings, has increasingly become a household discussion in the
mountain state, giving rise to corporate fears that perhaps the concentrations
of democratic decision making statewide may pose too great of a risk to
vulnerable living standards of CEOs and shareholders. Through their statewide campaign,
the grassroots network of State and corporate interests will seek to protect
what they consider their fundamental rights, and move beyond the regulation of
democracy, so as to eliminate it from public life altogether.
The industrial movement has added incentive and urgency this
year, as controversial state ballot measure number 75, the “Colorado Community
Rights Amendment”, heads ever closer toward the signature gathering effort needed
to place it to a direct vote of the Colorado people in 2014. The measure, advanced by regular, unpaid citizens,
threatens the very fabric of corporate power, and goes so far as to grant
communities and individuals, “…the
power to enact local laws protecting health, safety, and welfare by
establishing the fundamental rights of individuals, their communities, and
nature...”. The measure goes further, and grants these same individuals and
communities, “…the power to enact local laws
establishing, defining, altering, or eliminating the rights, powers, and duties
of corporations…”, an assertion seen a contradictory to the established
interests of CEOs and their friends in government.
For industry, the perceived threats to corporate rights have
recently been on the rise in the Colorado. Exemplified by the incursion of
front-range communities in the most recent elections, people and communities
took advantage of Colorado law using local ballot measures to delay or prohibit
the relatively powerless clientele of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association from
drilling within their city limits. Prior to the elections of November, 2013,
the Colorado Mining Association found itself under similar threat, as Summit,
Gilpin, Conejos, Castillo, and Gunnison Counties all enacted local laws
prohibiting the use of cyanide in mining there. In the view of these small but
passionate corporations, it was only the determination and leverage of the
Colorado Supreme Court that could restore justice and right the situation. In
the case of Summit County, the ban on cyanide was found offensive to State
authority, and in a 2009 ruling, was fully overturned. Attempting to build on
that victory, the Colorado Oil and Gas Association has filed similar lawsuits
against the communities of Longmont, Lafayette and Fort Collins. The results of
that litigation are still pending.
Among the major
concerns for today’s CEOs is what they believe to be a direct relationship
between democracy and community rights, a belief they feel is exemplified by
opposition documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the speeches
of the powerful Martin Luther King Jr..
Drawing from historic examples, industry leaders point to what they
consider to be America’s dark past, where the freedoms of wealthy entrepreneurs
and individuals came under perceived threat by efforts ranging from the
abolitionist movement to strikes and marches by fringe elements like working
people in the 1930s. If left to themselves, the CEOs and politicians contend,
people may eventually have the power to make informed decisions, and
communities may eventually grow so bold as to create entire sustainable
economies, all at the cost of the common Goldman Sachs Chief Economic Officer,
or even Wall Street itself.
House Majority
Leader Dicky Lee Hullinghorst, D – Boulder was quoted by the Denver Post on
January 21st of this year, speaking to the growing problem of
democracy in her state. “When you do things at the ballot box, I think you
frequently make a lot of mistakes that create difficulties in the future.” This
view was shared by some of the founding fathers themselves like John Adams, for
example, who stated that democracy is, “the tyranny of the majority”, and James
Madison who asserted that government, “…ought to be constituted so as to
protect the minority of the opulent against the majority”. These are the traces
of a true Corporate Rights Movement, according to transnational organizers, who
seek to embody its historical traditions.
These are truly days
of shifting and dynamic politics in the State of Colorado, and only time and
the changing grounds of political allegiance will tell what is next on the
Forture 500’s horizon. Organizers say that regardless of the power of common
people, and the relatively unpopular idea of a full Corporate State, they will
forge on, overturning local ordinances, consuming vast sections of the
environment and economy, and keeping the commoners far from any perceived
rights to health, safety, welfare, self determination or other such inherently
dangerous ideas.
