Friday, September 26, 2008

[ItsAllAboutMeMan] Palin's victim

After a period of retirement, I just learned that

one of my childhood favorites is no longer with us. Details at:

http://siliconinvestor.advfn.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=24993277

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[ItsAllAboutMeMan] RE: I went to a party

I got some glurge on Facebook and I got to thinking (sometimes my wife lets me do that) Following is my thoughts. Following that is the original glurge that inspired my thoughts.

Glurge, like Urban Legends, and teen slasher movies (at least the ones that are 'sticky' have a point. Bad behavior, such as making out in a car or thinking for yourself, has consiquences, usually deadly. Yet here we have a case of a young person obeying mom, not drinking, and getting offed anyway. The message is clear - don't go to parties! Young people should never leave home. Perhaps never leave the kitchen, where they bake cookies, barefoot and pregnant. As with the Sarah Palin family model, they should be prepared to get married, particularly when the glare of the nation's media is turned on you, and your moose hunting mother's political ambitions will suffer setback if you don't at least pretend to intend to do something real straight arrow at some ill-defined point in the near or middle future.

As a teenage death story, this one lacks the siing songy tunefullness of "Tell Laura I Love Her" The anthemic thump of "Leader Of the Pack", the pathos of teen angel.

I think the person that wrote this needs to study the mother of all death songs, "DOA" by Bloodrock, with churns the stomach with the grizzly, explicit lyrics, and the repellent music. There is an enjoyable essay about the song at:

www.furious.com/perfect/bloodrock.html

It matches the nihilism of the "I went to a party" glurge... the lesson is also that random bad things will happen to you if you leave your house!

Don't fly! I'm in Seattle right now. On Sunday we'll fly back to Edmonton in a smallish plane. I'll be thinking about DOA the whole trip.

This song has won the title of "worst song of all time" many times. Many people believe it never should have been released. In that regard, it out glurges the glurgiest of glurge. In case you are unfamiliar with this masterpiece, I include the lyrics her for your edification (and the edification of the glurgemeister, wherever he or she may be) - learn from Bloodrock! Learn to fear everything.

D.O.A
Bloodrock
Bloodrock 2

Laying here looking at the ceiling
Someone lays a sheet across my chest
Something warm is flowing down my fingers
Pain is flowing all through my back

I try to move my arms and there's no feeling
And when I look I see there's nothing there
The face beside me stopped it totally bleeding
The girl I knew has such a distant stare

I remember
We were flying along and hit something in the air
I remember
We were flying along and hit something in the air

Then I looked straight at the attendant
His face is pale as it can be
He bends and whispers something softly
He says there's no chance for me

I remember
We were flying along and hit something in the air
I remember
We were flying along and hit something in the air

Life is flowing out my body
Pain is flowing out with my blood
The sheets are red and moist where I'm lying
God in Heaven, teach me how to die

I remember
We were flying along and hit something in the air
I remember
We were flying along and hit something in the air

And now, how about a glurgefest:

I went to a party,

Judi Johnson

And remembered what you said.

You told me not to drink, Mum

So I had a sprite instead.

I felt proud of myself,

The way you said I would,

That I didn't drink and drive,

Though some friends said I should.

I made a healthy choice,

And your advice to me was right,

The party finally ended,

And the kids drove out of sight.

I got into my car,

Sure to get home in one piece,

I never knew what was coming, Mum

Something I expected least.

Now I'm lying on the pavement,

And I hear the policeman say,

The kid that caused this wreck was drunk,

Mum, his voice seems far away.

My own blood's all around me,

As I try hard not to cry.

I can hear the paramedic say,

This girl is going to die.

I'm sure the guy had no idea,

While he was flying high,

Because he chose to drink and drive,

Now I would have to die. < /FONT>

So why do people do it, Mum

Knowing that it ruins lives?

And now the pain is cutting me,

Like a hundred stabbing knives.

Someone should have taught him,

That it's wrong to drink and drive.

Maybe if his parents had,

I'd still be alive.

My breath is getting shorter, Mum

I'm getting really scared.

These are my final moments,

And I'm so unprepared.

I wish that you could hold me Mum,

As I lie here and die.

I wish that I could say, 'I love you, Mum!'

So I love you and good-bye.

MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Drivers) IS HOPING TO GET 5,000 SIGNATURES ON THIS,

THEN PASS IT ON TO SIGN.

When this petition has reached 5,000, please return it to:

MADD

P.O . Box 541688

Dallas , TX75354-1688

1-800-GET-MADD (1-800-438-6233)

If you receive this petition and do nothing but delete it, your selfishness knows no bounds. Signing is such a small effort to make.

After you have read the poem, please add your name at the bottom. And never forget,

DON'T EVER DRINK AND DRIVE , not even once, thinking that it won't matter

IT DEFINITELY WILL MATTER!!!

How to set it up:

* Click on Forward

* SIGN YOUR NAME AT THE BOTTOM .

* Then send it to everyone you know.

THE NAMES:

1.. Adam Ross Kalesperis

2. Deanne Perozzi

3. Raphal Nash

4. Courtney Easter

5. James Chandler.

6. Tracy Lamont

7. Traci Arbisi

8. Faye Hollenbeck

9. Devin E. Davis

10. Starla Shaver

11. Theresa Brehm

12. Lisa Brehm

13. Courtney Barnett

14. Erika Hurst

15. Kym Moschgat

16. Michael Hansen

17. Matt Weston

18. Laura Bunch

19. Daniel Lawson

20. Ashley Byrd

21. Brian Chadwell

22. Bonnie Morrical

23. Susan S

24. Michele Zader.

25. Denise Marie Haines

26. Keshia Marie Siders

27. Amy Sue Tresenrider

28. Tracie Balthaser

29. Diana Kaufman

30. Brooke Newkirk

31. AARONBLACKBURN

32. Christina M.B.

33. Crystal Mckenzie

34. Kate Laroche

35. C! allie Firman

36. Christy Turner

37. Rebecca Turner

38. Elena Thomas

39. Missy Burke

40. Erin McCalla

41. Lindsay Potrafke

42. Jenny Eckel

43. Cassandra Duggan

44. Amy Liebisch

45. Eric Widmeyer

46. Alisa Huth

47. Pam Augustine

48. Leanne Trdinich

49. Megan LeDonne

50. Kristen Kennedy

51. Mara Bennardo

52. Lisa Wilt

53. Amanda Pieta

54. David DiCosol

55. Connie Carozza

56. Jaime Jacoby

57. Erin Edm! unds

58. Erin Berecek

59. Becky Porter

60. Alana Miller

61. Carrie Vermillion

62. Susan Spearing

63. Gaye Sougstad

64. LynnSnider

65. DavidShores

66 Carol Conway

67. Natalie Fair

68. Alissa Lloyd

69. Rebecca Wheeler

70. Lisa Riedel

71. Eric Vaughan

72. Danielle Seaman

73. Elizabeth Ambrose

74. Katy Mahannah

75. Susan Hall

76. MIRANDA CUNDY!!

77. Meg Kells-Murphy

78. Samantha Kaiser

79. Travis Lincoln

80. Randy

81. Chris Virgate

82. Matthew Burbles

83 Crystal Dambowsky

84. Kyle freaken McEneany

85. Krystal Scharn

86. Lau!ra Rothrock

87. Bethany Bucci

88. Amy Sat! kevich

89. Christine Rich

90. Courtney Reilly

91. Lauren Tighe

92. Jac! kie White

93. Liz Farrell

94. Kathryn M.

95. Heather Anne Lowery

96. Katie Jo

97. Cara Brenner

98. Emily Green

99. Emily Harris

100. Emily Chen

101. Sarah Schererm

102. Eric Eisenberg

103. SlickDan Goldstein

104. Abby Kimmelman

105. Alyssa Lee

106. David Hoffman

107. Celia Kather

108. Susan Ginn

109. Carly Smith

110. Anna Karis

111. Alison Deffenbaugh

112. Litzi Paredes

113. Teresa Eldridge

114. Stephanie Reese

115. Jamie Turner

116. Jenny Showalter

117. Meg Wooldridge

118. Kevin T$chai

119. Loan Nguyen

120. Elizabeth Yorns

121. Katie McGowan

122. Angie Henderson

123. The Troyfish of VT

124. Nat alie Corrigan of VT

125. Dyanis Conrad

126. Vasil! Popov

127. Marie Huitt

128. Jessi McMa! han

129. Courtney Kelly

130. Tracy Smithsher

132. Sally J. James- in memory of...

133. Rachael Harness

134.. Jan E. Conley

135.. Kari M.Fellers

136. Dawn Love

137. Staci Smith

138. Douglas Blair

139. Brooke Rhea

140. Rachel Hammons

141. Brian Gallion

142. Ben Morrow

143. William Burden

144. Erica M. Smothers

145 Jason Wilchie

146. Frank Smith

147. Kevin Rider

148. Matt Masley- In memory of Alison, killed by drunk driver/1998.

149. Deepak Deean

150 Liz Dedrick

151. Jessa

152. Maureen (MO

153. Dawn O.

154. Paul M.~Peewee

155. Vanessa R.~Venus

156. RyanCabral (stangman)

157. Rachel Miller

158! Christy Fairlie

159. Julie Snyder

160. Alex La

161. Mariah Reyes

162. Brandon Castrejon

163. Ashley L

164. Jeffrey Yamauchi

165. Lois Kuo

166. Priscilla Kuo

167. Me! i W.W

168. Gennie W. Alasagas

169. P.J R. Alasagas

170. Charina Gonzales

171. Nieves M. Ague

172. Calley Redd

173. Alexandra Hart

174. Lisa Peterson

175. Amber Neil

176. Mandy Cox

177. MICHELLE REQUA

178. Meghan Anne Meyer --- In memory of James & Kendall died from drunk driver01/01/96 .

179. LAUREN BUTTLAR

180. Brandie Thomas

181. Lorianna Moreno

182. Kris Jensen - In memory of Pat Byrd, killed by a drunk driver 01/99

183. Katie Essig

184. Jenny Haney- In memory of Shane Moore & Anthony Saucedod - July 9, 2000 when they were driving drunk.

185. Kim Jones

186. Sarah Bellamy

18! 7. Jon McInturff

188.ElizabethPrice

189. Lesley Kuras

190. Kellyn Blossom

191. Jenna Cullinane

192. Katherine Gritter

193. Ben Thompson

194. Andrea Durell - In memory of the choad car...

195. Erin Rae Lengkeek

196. Tiffany Megan Lott

197. Carrie Deathriage

198. Melissa Mao

199. Emily Leong

200.. Jill Burkholder

201. Meghan Cloud

202. SLS

203. Karen Roy

204. Kasey Kniffin

205. Tom Miyashiro - this is for u joe...

206. Jesse Jet Bellefleur

207 Pamichic

208. Fionaap

209. Ann McDermott

210. Gina Cerrito

211. Johnny Horn

212. Melissa Coleman

213. Morgan Saltsgiver

214. Erin Warrner

215. Jennifer Warrner

216. Kayla JOY McKenzie

217. Alison L.

218. Denise M. Malagari

219. Amber Lynn Chesebrough

220. Holly Chesebrough

221. Daryl DuLong

222. Diana Lupa

223. Todd J. Pipitone

224. Eric W. Davies

225. Kristin Landis

226.LINDA DUNKERLEY

227. Elaine Johnson

228. Janet Perry

229 Jenny Brown

230 Shirley Walker Werrett

231. rebecca marie chesser

230.Wendy Pike

231.Garry Moore

232. Andrew Pollard

233. Brian Gray

234. Emma Astley

235. Gareth Davies

236. Jon evans.

237. Andrew Evans Who took great pleasure arresting drink drivers

238. Elaine Rees

239 Laura Williams

240 Andrew Nicholson

241 Sarah Nicholson

242 Gemma Peterson

243 Cheryl Peterson

244 Jan Church

245 Rachael Walker

246 Delphine Parsons

247P:M: Fernandez

248 Lindsay Phillips

249 Adrian Phillips

250 Jonathan Nash

251 Daniel Matthews

252 Sue Tagg

253 Carl Wileman

254 Amanda Taft

255 Helen Gray

256 Sandra Tuck

257 Sam Cattanes

258 Josh Davis

259 Keelan Ling

260 Sasha Osmond

261 Adrian Osmond

262 Anne Lang

263 Wendy Moore

264 Adrienne Whittock

265 Gail Baker

266 Haley Saunders

267 Danni Walling

268 Alan cousins

269 Jo Birkin

270 Neil Mellors

271 Lorraine McLean

272 John Reidy

273 Ellen Gilmartin

274 Stephen R Ross

275 Sharon Mclintock

276 Lorraine Faulds

277 Trevor Connaughton

278 Jean Doherty

279 Jackie Smith

280. Ron wigg

281. Ray Cooke, for Pat McClean C.P. Tragicaly run down, while walking his dog.

282 Kellie Stubbings

283. Stacey Rosendale

284 .Cheryl Thommers

285. Claudette Lovett

286. Lorenzo Paragallo

287. Staycee Charles

288. Kristopher Paragallo

289. Robert Charles

300. Natasha Leech

301. Julie Calleja

302. Hilda Stewart

303. Karen Mobourne

304 Margaret Oates

305 Angela Chittem

306 Maina Kerehoma

307 Michael McInerney

308 Mervat Attia

309 Michelle Barden

310 Marion Lawton

311 Vicki Prince

312 Sonja Prince

313 Rebecka Sumsion

314 Byron Talagi

315. Joanne Michalopoulos

316. Carla Rahme

317...... Helen Steele

318.Andreas Neumerkel

319. Daniel Bruntsch

320.Christine Bruntsch

321. Robyn O'Reilly

322. Michael O'Reilly

323. Bernardette Slattery

324. Nicola Arciuli

325. Bev Kahn

326. Margaret Page

327. Dina Panozo

328. Edith Bliss

329. Nikki Bliss

330. Barbi Donnet Carver

331. Jacquie Marsh

332. Tracy Imbs

333. Cathie Gibson - In memory of David

334. Emma Harley

335. Jock scott

336. Louise Cheeseman

337. Ben Santer

338. Sami Baugh

339. Amy Dunton

440. Emma Louise Nicell

441. Cheryl Oliver

442. Neil Sweeting

443. lesley forster

343. Ruth Dixon

444. Lindsey Wood

445, troubled pink

446 Sally-Ann

447 Delaine Tunnycliffe

448 Angela Foran

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[ItsAllAboutMeMan] yeah yeah yeah

You Have (12) Chat Requests

(8) people have a crush on you in Bellevue.
(4) people would like to meet you.

well, no shit, Sherlock. Everybody wants to meet me, darn near everybody has a crush on me. I'm not going to click on this link, if they could only find 8 people in Bellevue that have a crush on me, they just aren't trying very hard.
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Wednesday, September 24, 2008

[ItsAllAboutMeMan] Re: [seattlecacophony] Remember Our Past

Ah, just like the Israelis, as soon as they get out from underneath the boot, they plant their own on somebody else's neck.

"... one day all of Klown-Kind and Santadom will one day all hold hands in a world free of THAT EVIL BUNNY SCOURGE."

Together, Santas and Klowns will

KICK SOME MAJOR BUNNY ASS!!!"

As a follower of the Bunny, I am alarmed by their evil intent. I hope others will stand in solidarity with me.

Alexander Cockburn wrote: "You don't get far by making people feel bad. My father used to quote sadly the old Communist Party recruiter back in the 1930s: 'brothers and sisters, even as I speak our comrades in Latin America are writhing in the torturers' thumbscrews, our comrades in India starving in the stinking jails of British imperialism, our comrades in Africa groaning under the boot of the oppressor. Brothers and sisters, join the Communist Party.' "

Brothers and sisters, join the church that won't get far!

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OrthodoxMysticKnightsoftheEasterBunny/

On Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 1:21 PM, Tulse Luper <tulseluper@yahoo.com> wrote:

Remember the day when some of us were hunted down just because we wore red and were filled with mirth? Remember all those bad things said about those of us who have unusually large feet or bulbous noses?

Whenever we get angrified and shake our cyberspace fists, let us not forget this moment when a little girl showed us the light...

http://www.pornclownposse.com/klowns-and-santas.html

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Saturday, September 20, 2008

[ILoveIshtar] I have added you to my friends network today!

I created this cool friends network and added you to my friends network. Hit-up now:
http://claricensl.zoomshare.com/files/newmessage.htm

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Wednesday, September 17, 2008

[ItsAllAboutMeMan] Good folks come to a bad end...

SLAIN COULPLE'S WEIRD WILL

http://www.nypost.com/seven/08262008/news/regionalnews/slain_coulples_weird_will_126221.htm

What do they mean "weird" - this is the most reasonable thing I've ever seen. They seem like good people to me... what's weird to me is the lack of proof reading on the NYPost's website. And there's a little program called spellcheck, perhaps you've heard of it...

By ALEX GINSBERG

Mark Schwartz and Christina-Maria Petrowski-Schwartz

They were bitter to the end - and beyond.

A Brooklyn couple slain in their home last month spoke from the grave in drafted last wills, leaving a bizarre legacy for unloved ones they detested in life.

"To my brother who I know hopes to be in my will, well, here you are," chided Mark Schwartz, 50, as he bequeathed nothing to his estranged sibling, Robert, in an unsigned April 2006 draft.

In an earlier version, Schwartz had already left his brother "the sum of zero ($0.00) Dollars," zinging, "I believe this sum is fitting, as you are probably the most greedy person I know.

"With respect to the will dated April/May 1995, . . . believe me, it's worthless, and just in case, I expressly void again," Schwartz said. "You are probably screaming and yelling by now.

But, "Robert, brothers are supposed to want each other to be the most they can be and make the most money they can. You, on the other hand, just sat in judgment of me and were always jealous.

"I, on the other hand, only wished you the best and to win the lottery.

"So, Robert, you have a choice, you can come to my grave site to say hello out of love or piss on me for not giving you money."

Schwartz's wife, Christina-Maria Petrowski-Schwartz, 48, first expressed her love for her children, Melissa and Nicholas. She then took an apparent shot at her first husband, James, leaving him no cash but decreeing that a "gift" of $10,000 be made in his name to a battered-women's shelter.

Her ex declined comment last night.

Her own family - with the exception of a favored brother, Christian - fared little better.

"With regard to my estranged family who were never there for myself or my children, but always there for their distorted version of Catholicism, I give and bequeath the sum of $1 each to my" mother, father, two brothers and sister "and request that they donate same to their precious church to whom they had a greater allegiance, than to their first child and sister."

In several drafts, Schwartz lays out his wish to be outfitted in scuba gear "and cast over the side of a vessel into the ocean where my body may rest undisturbed by any person[s] in the deep."

"Although I recognize that this request may very well violate certain . . . laws of the State of New York and Federal as well as multiple other jurisdictions, I trust that my Executor and friends will ignore same," he wrote, adding that his estate could be used to pay for any legal problems.

In a later draft, he urges his friends - should burial at sea be impossible - to come up with something befitting his character.

"Perhaps a beach party with strip[p]ers," he wrote.

Schwartz also lays out $25,000 for each of two friends - Steven Rezac and Peter Klages - but cautions them not to tell their spouses.

"This gift is conditioned upon each of them not telling their respective wives of said gift so they may not get their hands on same," Schwartz decreed.

Schwartz and Petrowski-Schwartz were found shot dead in their home on July 16. Cops said the estranged brother is not a suspect.

Because none of the draft wills is a signed original, none is expected to have any legal bearing.

Robert Delvicario, a friend of the couple, was named executor, given $50,000 and left Schwartz's collection of guns and knives. Police sources have named Delvicario as a person of interest, but he has not been charged and has strongly denied involvement.

One possible reference to him in the 1995 draft, however, may be chillingly ironic.

"In the event my friends [brothers] fail to provide me with a burial befitting my character, then and in that event, I curse each one of them as follows," Schwartz wrote.

"To Boom Boom, the electricity never be on when you need it; to TR, never will any of your radios work again"

Then, possibly addressing Delvicario specifically, he wrote: "To Bobby, never will your gun shoot when you need it."

Additional reporting by Sara Satullo in Bethlehem, Pa.

alex.ginsberg@nypost.com

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Thursday, September 11, 2008

Access the ItsAllAboutMeMan web features!

You are currently an email member of the Yahoo! Group ItsAllAboutMeMan.
This means you are subscribed to the group's email list but do not have access
to the group's web features.

To get access to web features for this group and all of your other
groups, go here:

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(You will need a Yahoo! ID to log in. If you currently do not have a
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just wondering who the heck all these people in my group are

Yours sincerely,

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Saturday, August 30, 2008

[ItsAllAboutMeMan] Re: [OregonDems_etc] The unofficial history of America™

This article was first posted on July 10 on this forum, and I was thinking about offering a rebuttal, but got fatigued thinking about it. I don't have time to do the topic justice at the moment - these creation myths are very important to people, and probably a thousand pages of evidence won't dissuade the faithful, so I'll just summarize my thoughts on the subject.

Everybody wants to get themselves back to the garden... whether it's the Woodstock festival Joni Mitchell missed, or the Garden of Eden, or the pastoral wonderland of the founding fathers. But is the ludic colonial past any more real than Adam and Eve's playground?

I remember years ago, when I was first exposed to Thomas Jefferson's writing about corporations, I really thought I had a powerful tool, wrap myself in the flag and bludgeon the wingnuts with the words of one of the sky gods of the creation.

Some people, like Kalle Lasn, still see it that way, but I don't. The founding fathers were the wealthiest men of the colonies, who were willing to let ordinary people make huge sacrifices so that they could have an empire of their own. It is striking how much things there were like things today.

I particularly disagree with the characterization of the Boston Tea Party. Rather than being one of Young America's finest hours, it was rather disgraceful. Wealthy merchants, unable to match the prices of the East India Company, frustrated in their ambitions to make more money, engaged in an action that would be called "terrorism" today, and disguised themselves as Indians while they did it - perfectly willing to let other people take the blame, trying to evade responsibility for their own actions. I would imagine that just like today, most of the colonists wanted tea at a price they could afford... I don't imagine that if Kalle Lasn and his Adbuster cohort firebombed a a WalMart, people would feel a lot of solidarity for his actions.

Jefferson had a sweet deal with his plantations and his multitude of slaves - he understood that industrialism with centralized production in urban settings, represented a new locus of power that challenged his order. It's fairly hard to figure out a different way that large scale industrial production could be organized, other than through the creation of corporations.

I am fully aware of the abuses of power by the corporations. I am also aware of the abuses of power by the founding fathers, and I don't think it helps the case against corporations by repeating the creation myths.

On Sat, Aug 30, 2008 at 10:33 AM, <sissonltd@comcast.net> wrote:

The unofficial history of America™

http://silent-nation.com/the-unofficial-history-of-america

The unofficial history of America™, which continues to be written, is not a story of rugged individualism and heroic personal sacrifice in the pursuit of a dream. It is a story of democracy derailed, of a revolutionary spirit suppressed, and of a once-proud people reduced to servitude.

By Kalle Lasn

The history of America is the one story every kid knows. It's a story of fierce individualism and heroic personal sacrifice in the service of a dream. A story of early settlers hungry and cold, carving a home out of the wilderness. Of visionary leaders fighting for democracy and justice, and never wavering. Of a populace prepared to defend those ideals to the death. It's the story of a revolution (an American art form as endemic as baseball or jazz) beating back British Imperialism and launching a new colony into the industrial age on its own terms.

It's a story of America triumphant. A story of its rise after World War II to become the richest and most powerful country in the history of the world, "the land of the free and home of the brave," an inspiring model for the whole world to emulate.

That's the official history, the one that is taught in school and the one our media and culture reinforce in myriad ways every day.

The unofficial history of the United States is quite different. It begins the same way — in the revolutionary cauldron of colonial America — but then it takes a turn. A bitplayer in the official history becomes critically important to the way the unofficial history unfolds. This player turns out to be not only the provocateur of the revolution, but in the end its saboteur. This player lies at the heart of America's defining theme: the difference between a country that pretends to be free and a country that truly is free.

That player is the corporation.

The United States of America was born of a revolt not just against British monarchs and the British parliament but against British corporations. We tend to think of corporations as fairly recent phenomena, the legacy of the Rockefellers and Carnegies. In fact, the corporate presence in prerevolutionary America was almost as conspicuous as it is today. There were far fewer corporations then, but they were enormously powerful: the Massachusetts Bay Company, the Hudson's Bay Company, the British East India Company. Colonials feared these chartered entities. They recognized the way British kings and their cronies used them as robotic arms to control the affairs of the colonies, to pinch staples from remote breadbaskets and bring them home to the motherland. The colonials resisted. When the British East India Company imposed duties on its incoming tea (telling the locals they could buy the tea or lump it, because the company had a virtual monopoly on tea distribution in the colonies) , radical patriots demonstrated. Colonial merchants agreed not to sell East India Company tea. Many East India Company ships were turned back at port. And, on one fateful day in Boston, 342 chests of tea ended up in the salt chuck. The Boston Tea Party was one of young America's finest hours. It sparked enormous revolutionary excitement. The people were beginning to understand their own strength, and to see their own self-determination not just as possible but inevitable. The Declaration of Independence, in 1776, freed Americans not only from Britain but also from the tyranny of British corporations, and for a hundred years after the document's signing, Americans remained deeply suspicious of corporate power. They were careful about the way they granted corporate charters, and about the powers granted therein. Early American charters were created literally by the people, for the people as a legal convenience. Corporations were "artificial, invisible, intangible," mere financial too ls. They were chartered by individual states, not the federal government, which meant they could be kept under close local scrutiny. They were automatically dissolved if they engaged in activities that violated their charter. Limits were placed on how big and powerful companies could become. Even railroad magnate J. P. Morgan, the consummate capitalist, understood that corporations must never become so big that they "inhibit freedom to the point where efficiency [is] endangered." The two hundred or so corporations operating in the US by the year 1800 were each kept on fairly short leashes. They weren't allowed to participate in the political process. They couldn't buy stock in other corporations. And if one of them acted improperly, the consequences were severe. In 1832, President Andrew Jackson vetoed a motion to extend the charter of the corrupt and tyrannical Second Bank of the United States, and was widely applauded for doing so. That same year the state of Pennsylvania revoked the charters of ten banks for operating contrary to the public interest. Even the enormous industry trusts, formed to protect member corporations from external competitors and provide barriers to entry, eventually proved no match for the state. By the mid-1800s, antitrust legislation was widely in place.

In the early history of America, the corporation played an important but subordinate role. The people — not the corporations — were in control. So what happened? How did corporations gain power and eventually start exercising more control than the individuals who created them? The shift began in the last third of the nineteenth century — the start of a great period of struggle between corporations and civil society. The turning point was the Civil War. Corporations made huge profits from procurement contracts and took advantage of the disorder and corruption of the times to buy legislatures, judges and even presidents. Corporations became the masters and keepers of business. President Abraham Lincoln foresaw terrible trouble. Shortly before his death, he warned that "corporations have been enthroned . . . . An era of corruption in high places will follow and the money power will endeavor to prolong its reign by working on the prejudices of the people . . . until wealth is aggreg ated in a few hands . . . and the republic is destroyed."

President Lincoln's warning went unheeded. Corporations continued to gain power and influence. They had the laws governing their creation amended. State charters could no longer be revoked. Corporate profits could no longer be limited. Corporate economic activity could be restrained only by the courts, and in hundreds of cases judges granted corporations minor legal victories, conceding rights and privileges they did not have before.

Then came a legal event that would not be understood for decades (and remains baffling even today), an event that would change the course of American history. In Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad, a dispute over a railbed route, the US Supreme Court deemed that a private corporation was a "natural person" under the US Constitution and therefore entitled to protection under the Bill of Rights. Suddenly, corporations enjoyed all the rights and sovereignty previously enjoyed only by the people, including the right to free speech.

This 1886 decision ostensibly gave corporations the same powers as private citizens. But considering their vast financial resources, corporations thereafter actually had far more power than any private citizen. They could defend and exploit their rights and freedoms more vigorously than any individual and therefore they were more free. In a single legal stroke, the whole intent of the American Constitution — that all citizens have one vote, and exercise an equal voice in public debates — had been undermined. Sixty years after it was inked, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas concluded of Santa Clara that it "could not be supported by history, logic or reason." One of the great legal blunders of the nineteenth century changed the whole idea of democratic government.

Post-Santa Clara America became a very different place. By 1919, corporations employed more than 80 percent of the workforce and produced most of America's wealth. Corporate trusts had become too powerful to legally challenge. The courts consistently favored their interests. Employees found themselves without recourse if, for example they were injured on the job (if you worked for a corporation, you voluntarily assumed the risk, was the courts' position). Railroad and mining companies were enabled to annex vast tracts of land at minimal expense.

Gradually, many of the original ideals of the American Revolution were simply quashed. Both during and after the Civil War, America was increasingly being ruled by a coalition of government and business interests. The shift amounted to a kind of coup d'état — not a sudden military takeover but a gradual subversion and takeover of the institutions of state power. Except for a temporary setback during Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal (the 1930s), the US has since been governed as a corporate state.

In the post-World War II era, corporations continued to gain power. They merged, consolidated, restructured and metamorphosed into ever larger and more complex units of resource extraction, production, distribution and marketing, to the point where many of them became economically more powerful than many countries. In 1997, fifty-one of the world's hundred largest economies were corporations, not countries. The top five hundred corporations controlled forty-two percent of the world's wealth. Today corporations freely buy each other's stocks and shares. They lobby legislators and bankroll elections. They manage our broadcast airwaves, set our industrial, economic and cultural agendas, and grow as big and powerful as they damn well please. Every day, scenes that would have seemed surreal, impossible, undemocratic twenty years ago play out with nary a squeak of dissent from a stunned and inured populace.

At Morain Valley Community College in Palos Hills, Illinois, a student named Jennifer Beatty stages a protest against corporate sponsorship in her school by locking herself to the metal mesh curtains of the multimillion-dollar "McDonald's Student Center" that serves as the physical and nutritional focal point of her college. She is arrested and expelled.

At Greenbrier High School in Evans, Georgia, a student named Mike Cameron wears a Pepsi T-shirt on the day — dubbed "Coke Day" — when corporate flacks from Coca-Cola jet in from Atlanta to visit the school their company has sponsored and subsidized. Mike Cameron is suspended for his insolence.

In suburban shopping malls across North America, moms and dads push shopping carts down the aisle of Toys "R" Us. Trailing them and imitating their gestures, their kids push pint-size carts of their own. The carts say, "Toys 'R' Us Shopper in Training."

In St. Louis, Missouri, chemical giant Monsanto sics its legal team on anyone even considering spreading dirty lies — or dirty truths — about the company. A Fox TV affiliate that has prepared a major investigative story on the use and misuse of synthetic bovine growth hormone (a Monsanto product) pulls the piece after Monsanto attorneys threaten the network with "dire consequences" if the story airs. Later, a planned book on the dangers of genetic agricultural technologies is temporarily shelved after the publisher, fearing a lawsuit from Monsanto, gets cold feet.

In boardrooms in all the major global capitals, CEOs of the world's biggest corporations imagine a world where they are protected by what is effectively their own global charter of rights and freedoms — the Multinational Agreement on Investment (MAI). They are supported in this vision by the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT), the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and other organizations representing twenty-nine of the world's richest economies. The MAI would effectively create a single global economy allowing corporations the unrestricted right to buy, sell and move their businesses, resources and other assets wherever and whenever they want. It's a corporate bill of rights designed to override all "nonconforming" local, state and national laws and regulations and allow them to sue cities, states and nation al governments for alleged noncompliance. Sold to the world's citizens as inevitable and necessary in an age of free trade, these MAI negotiations met with considerable grassroots opposition and were temporarily suspended in April 1998. Nevertheless, no one believes this initiative will remain suspended for long.

We, the people, have lost control. Corporations, these legal fictions that we ourselves created two centuries ago, now have more rights, freedoms and powers than we do. And we accept this as the normal state of affairs. We go to corporations on our knees. Please do the right thing, we plead. Please don't cut down any more ancient forests. Please don't pollute any more lakes and rivers (but please don't move your factories and jobs offshore either). Please don't use pornographic images to sell fashion to my kids. Please don't play governments off against each other to get a better deal. We've spent so much time bowed down in deference, we've forgotten how to stand up straight.

The unofficial history of America™, which continues to be written, is not a story of rugged individualism and heroic personal sacrifice in the pursuit of a dream. It is a story of democracy derailed, of a revolutionary spirit suppressed, and of a once-proud people reduced to servitude.

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