How does Corporate Rule affect my life?

This is a place where you can read concrete examples of how corporate rule (particularly the false legal doctrines of corporate constitutional rights and money as political free speech) is affecting people’s self-governance on the ground where they live. This page is not for explaining the macro view of the larger issues (e.g. corporate privatization of public education), but rather a micro view of specific impacts of corporate power in a town, city, or county that denies the rights of local democracy (e.g. a public school that was closed and then opened as a for-profit charter school).

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Corporate Rule Stories

• Debtors' Prisons: Not As Historic As You Think
   
• Private Prisons and Political Power (Part Two): Corporations Write Their Own Laws
   
• Puerto Rico's Post-Hurricane Encounter with "Disaster Capitalism"
   
• Charter Schools in New Orleans: An Erosion of the Rights to a Good Education
   
• Amazon Corporations Extracts Tax Breaks from Cities Vying for Headquarters
   
• Chevron Corporation Takes on First Amendment Powers in Richmond, CA
   
• PG&E Corporation and California's Public Utility Commission Draw Fire over Fires
   
• Drug Corporation Evades Patent Law to Sustain Profit, Stifle Democracy
   
• Chevron Refinery Harms Local Communities in California 
   
• Friends with Benefits: Sacramento County's Special Relationship with Teichert Corporation
   
• Private Prisons and Political Power (Part One): Money as Free Speech
   
• South Dakota Lawmakers Overrule Voters' Wishes
   
• State Preemption as Barrier to Local Control
   
• Corporate Mining Rights Deny Self-Rule to Alaskans
   
• Airbnb Deems City Rental Laws Violate Its "Constitutional Rights"
   
• Exxon Mobil Claims Constitutional Rights to Avoid Revealing Climate Change Cover-up
   
• Saudi Arabia "Buys" Power in Uber Corporation and Our Elections
   
• ​"Free Trade" Agreements Clobber People's Sovereignty
   
• Sovereign Citizens Don't Scold Their Corporate Creations

• The Corporate Role in Flint's Horror Story

• Big Ph​armaceutical Corporation Makes Billions Lying about Drug's Safety to Children and the Elderly

• Drug Corporation's Free Speech "Rights" Trump FDA's Approval Process
   
• State Denies Texas Community's Anti-Fracking Rights
   
• California's Drought Policy Serves Corporations First, People Second
   
• Florida-based Mining Corporation Buys Rewrite of Wisconsin Law
   
• Corporations Sue Hawaiian Government and Attempt to Overturn Laws They Say Violate Their Constitutional Rights