See, I don't think that's a particularly good list. Or rather, it reads like a list of complaints from someone who reads certain websites and papers rather than an actual list of implementable reforms.
Prosecute criminals in banking, stock market, and other financial service sectors
This does happen. It's more that the laws don't cover things that some people would rather see as crimes and that sentencing in this area actually makes sense (eg, doesn't satisfy people's desire for revenge). It's only in comparison to the less progressive criminal law structures in other areas of life that financial crimes and 'crimes' are given leeway.
Revoke Citizens United
This essentially means either amending the US constitution or stacking the Supreme Court. Arguably you could achieve the latter by simply having a progressive president for the next, oh, four or five terms.
As the anti-abortion movement know, campaigning against Supreme Court decisions is a great method of fundraising. You can't repeal them and so the evil you are targeting never goes away. It's a cash cow you can milk for decades. I fully expect the progressive left to continue to milk
Citizens even if campaign finance reforms go through Congress.
Eliminate personhood status of corporations
This is one of those areas which to me feels like, "money isn't speech." The concept itself isn't the problem, it's the execution and overreach.
For money being speech, spending money can be a form of expression which frankly needs a substantial level of protection. Consider an individual making political or charitable donations to a group that their employer or even local government dislikes. I believe those sorts of donations require the same sorts of protections as any other statement or expression of support for those groups. Simply because money is involve doesn't mean we should open the door to position-based discrimination.
The problems come with the lack of campaign finance regulations in the USA, which again comes back to the Supreme Court and constitution.
With corporate personhood it's an incredibly useful legal simplification. A corporation is simply a group of people acting as one. Those people keep all the rights they would were they acting alone. It is simply for convenience that they are viewed as a single person for the purposes of entering into contracts, suing or being sued, etc. Completely abolishing corporate personhood would be counter-productive and destructive, destroying the ability for them to enter into any legal agreements as an entity.
The question is what rights such a personhood grants them. Generally speaking they would be any rights that any group of people, incorporated or not, should expect
as a group. If me and three friends decided to band together to make a purchase or write an article or whatever we would expect a certain set of rights, subtly different to if any one of us were to act alone. The exact nuance of where this line is and how it relates to a corporation is where the debate is.
Reform lobbying practices to limit their influence and prevent them from directly writing legislation
Preventing outside groups from writing legislation is a rather silly and arbitrary distinction to draw. If the purpose of the legislation is what lobbyists care about then whether they write the wording or not doesn't really matter. Not to mention it seems incredibly impractical and unenforcible. If I was a lobbyist and proposed some particular wording of a law would it be my actions that are illegal, or does it only become illegal if congress passes that exact wording? How about if they change some of the wording?
And how about non-corporate lobbying groups? If I'm a paid lobbyist for a non-profit pro-space-exploration group and propose some language for a new NASA acquisition bill would that be illegal?
Author
Topic: Occupying Wallstreet (Read 294272 times)